


In the Bond

by Downwiththeficness



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Knifeplay, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:40:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28895247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Downwiththeficness/pseuds/Downwiththeficness
Summary: Lilah often wished she’d never said yes to working with the Gecko brothers—usually while dodging gunfire. At no time was she regretting that decision more than when she’s hanging upside down from the ceiling, staring down a group of hungry culebras and one (1) extremely powerful sun god.
Relationships: Brasa/Original Female Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In The Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774153) by [Downwiththeficness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Downwiththeficness/pseuds/Downwiththeficness). 



> This is an AU of my Story In the Blood, which can be read here. Basically, this fic explores what would have happened if Lilah had met up with Geckos before she met Brasa. You do not need to have read In the Blood to read this fic, but I've peppered a few Easter eggs from the first fic in this one, for those who have taken the time to read it.

Lilah McNamara knew, in that moment, that she was definitely going to die. Hanging from the ceiling, harness digging into her hips, she swung back and forth in a long, slow arc. Arms waving wildly, she glanced around the room, looking for the first one to strike. Richie had said no more than five. Five culebras hiding out in a nest, easily taken down with the right firepower (which they happened to have). All she had to do was lay the explosives, get to the roof, and repel down the side of the building. Easy peasy.

As the swing of her movement slowed, Lilah was able right herself enough that an involuntary, nervous smile, flitted across her lips. There were, indeed, five of them. And, they were looking at her, confused. This was good. Confusion bought her time. Her brain worked to come up with a logical excuse for having crashed their...ritual?

The room was a large, open space with little in the way of furniture. The domed glass ceiling had partially fallen to the tile floor below. There were a few chairs here and there, but the focus of the décor was the altar at one end. There was a copper bowl sitting in the center, the liquid inside thick and red. She filed that away to examine later, when her life wasn’t in immediate danger.

Standing behind the altar was what she assumed was the real target of their mission—which _had not_ been brought up during the briefing for the job. Lilah was going to kill Richie for leaving this out of their plan—she just _knew_ he was hoping for a special guest. And, this special guest was pretty much the end all, be all, of special guests.

Brasa. Rival. Blood drinker. Sun god. He was dressed in all black, a heavy leather coat hanging from impossibly wide shoulders. Lilah stared at him with doe eyes, knowing the threat that he posed to her far outweighed the threat of the culebras now circling a few feet below. He had eluded all of their schemes to take him down, somehow dodging explosives, machine guns, arcane magic. He was untouchable, and he was _here._

Above, a face peeked over the edge of the broken glass. Lilah looked up (or down) at Seth, knowing that panic was plain across her face.

“Pull me up!” she shouted, her gaze moving back to the more pressing danger. This was not how she had planned to die. Though, with the way she was living her life lately, it was the most likely.

Lilah had done some pretty stupid things, pulled jobs in extremely dangerous locales, and had narrowly escaped some serious prison time. In the last few months she’d been with the brothers Gecko, all of the close calls she’d had during her career had been blown to little pieces. Poof. Gone. Utterly unable to compete with the sheer insanity of learning that vampires existed, that demi-gods were roaming the earth, and that she had joined up in the fight against them. If she didn’t kill Richie first, she’d shoot Seth as soon as she got her feet on the ground. Speaking of which...

“Fucking rope,” Seth grumbled, his hands reaching down to grab at it.

He gave an experimental pull before bracing his foot on the ledge and putting his weight into it. Lilah heard the scrape of it being pulled, her body lifting a few inches. The next grind of material was drowned out by a rising growl that drew her attention, unwillingly, from the culebras’ hungry faces. Brasa was slowly circling the altar, his eyes so black that there was nothing of the white left. His lips were pulled back in a snarl that exposed a dual set of fangs—shorter, but no less sharp than the ones she’d seen on culebras they’d hunted down before. She felt her heart lurch in fear.

The circle of hungry predators opened for him wordlessly, their eyes sparking with villainous amusement, fangs out and teeth bared. Lilah felt her body go involuntarily lax, her arms hanging by her ears. So, this was it. After months of working to quell the flow of these enemies, months of listening to the brothers argue about how best to attack and the most effective defense system. After all the things she had stolen to give them an edge. After all that...this was her end.

The rope yanked again, lifting her another foot or so. She bounced in the harness, feeling it catch at her inner thighs and shoulders. Another yank. Another foot. Seth wasn’t working fast enough. Brasa was within arm’s reach of her, his fathomless eyes looking up and an unreadable expression on his face. She looked back at him, hoping her death would be quick.

Another yank, this one harder than the last. She cringed as she rose and fell with a little yelp. Looking around, she frowned at the ceiling, her breath stuttering as she caught the fraying of the rope where it met the jagged glass surrounding the hole she’d made by falling stupidly through the skylight. _Oh, fuck_...it was going to snap. She was going to fall...Lilah glanced back down (or up), and made a quick calculation. Head first, she would break at least one bone, possibly crack open her head. A painful end, then.

Seth yanked her again, and Lilah could hear him yelling in frustration about it from above. She grit her teeth and yelled back at him.

“Pull _harder,_ you asshole!”

This man could pull a win out of his ass at any time, no matter the circumstances. And now, he was struggling to pull _her_ up from the depths of her literal death. It figured. 

From not so far away, Brasa chuckled and took a step or two back, his shoulder s canting down. Lilah flicked her attention from the ceiling to him and back, did it again, then felt herself  reach a blind  panic. Two running steps, and he l eaped into the air, arm outstretched. Lilah made a vain attempt to bat him away, earning herself a strained  huff of laughter .

His gloved hand grasped the harness where the five points came together at her sternum. Air pushed out of her lungs as he dug them into the material. His weight, coupled with a counterpoint  pull down ward had the already frayed rope  finally breaking from somewhere above. 

For half a second, she was weightless, and then Brasa’s bulk began to fall, taking her along with him. There was no grace in what she did next, a reaction of pure instinct. Lilah’s hands went for his shoulders, the largest target she could get at on hi m . Her legs kicked out a s she grabbed him, the complete force of her body landing on him. 

She had intended to take him to the ground, to  drop everything she had on him like a hot potato—and then haul ass out the side door. A couple hundred feet, and she’d be able to pull the burner cell from her pocket and hit speed dial. Boom. 

That’s not how it worked out. He caught her. He fucking caught her. All her weight, all his weight, the pull of Earth’s gravity, and all. Lilah stared at him as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her about six inches off the floor. He didn’t even have the good grace to flinch when her toes smacked against his shins.

Arms tucked against his chest, legs hanging uselessly, Lilah could only look at him, agog. He looked back, brows rising towards his hairline. And then he smiled. All teeth, the skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkling. This smile was worse than the smiles of his companions. This was a real smile, one that indicated a level of happiness that his kind shouldn’t be able to achieve. That, more than anything, scared her shitless.

Above them, a voice shouted, “You let her go, you fucking snake.  She’s on our team.”

Brasa let out a soft breath, his mouth relaxing a little, but the smile remained on his closed lips, “I disagree.”

Seth cursed again and was suddenly firing bullets into the crowd around them. Lilah ducked her head a little, noting that Brasa made no move, though his arms tightened even more. Growls and the ricochet of bullets hit her ears, her eyes shut against the flurry.

In his distraction, Lilah was able  to  blindly  free her gun from the holster at her thigh, turn off the safety, and fire a round. The recoil set off her aim, and the shot that was aimed to shatter his femur swerved to the left and merely ended out in a flesh wound. Still, he  yelled as he dropped her and that was all she needed to get her feet underneath her and haul ass through the  _wrong fucking door._

She’d gone right when she should have gone left, her eyes half closed in fear, the whiz of bullets flying around her. The panic made her blind and desperate. Lilah cleared an open doorway and hit the far wall, her feet skidding across the hardwood. She sprinted down the hall, feeling a scream worm its way out of her throat when a loud, angry howl sounded behind her. It scored through her chest and pushed her to move faster.

Not looking back, she moved through what must have been a common room to another hall, rounding the corner and heading for the only door left to her. It opened easily, but Lilah found herself hesitating before a set of stairs.

“God, damn it,” she breathed, wanting to not be right where she was at that very second more than she wanted anything in her entire life.

A fter a moment of indecision, Lilah stepped through and closed the door as quietly as she could behind her. It was dark, and she didn’t want to chance turning on a light.  Feeling her way, she stepped down stair by stair  until her foot stopped prematurely, nearly setting her off balance. 

Inhaling deeply, Lilah swallowed back the urge to cough at the musty smell.  She could hide out here for a bit, wait until the coast  was clear, and then go back to the original plan. Wait it out. Original plan. 

L ilah tried to breathe,  her hands reflexively slipping the clasps of the harness free so that she could have something to do while she thought .  There was next to no light—except for what filtered around a walk-out door. Lilah blinked at it for a moment, clearly not able to handle her good luck. She got two steps towards it before she was spinning around and flung the other way.  The harness flew from her hand, landing somewhere in the dark.  She might have screamed had her throat not clenched so damn tightly that not eve n air could pass through.

Lilah caught some pretty decent air before she hit the wall with a dull thud and a sharp pain in her side.  Landing in a little heap, Lilah struggled to get her bearings.  Pushing from the floor, she leaned against the wall and faced her attacker, hand already  reaching for her gun . She didn’t even get it out of the holster before h er wrist  was  being held immobile . A  palm pressed against her chest. 

There was no moving forward or backwards.  Not without his permission.  Lilah sucked in a breath, glancing at the door behind him, and then back to his face.  Cast in mostly shadow,  Brasa didn’t look angry, as she expected. He looked...rather pleased. Lilah would rather that he was angry.  Angry, she could probably deal with. Pleased was another matter entirely.

L eaning in, he inhaled deeply, his face unnervingly close to hers. Then, he pulled back, looked at her, and breathed, “Finally.”

T ry as she might, Lilah couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She just stared at him like a fucking idiot while he looked her over, assessing.  His hand pressed minutely forward, knocking a little more air out of her chest, and then he was stepp ing back and away.  With the extra support, Lilah teetered off balance a moment before she caught herself.

It appeared that her luck was more of a fluke, fate’s last taunt before she was snuffed out of existence. She mentally flipped the universe the bird. Physically, she held very, very still. Just because he wasn’t killing her yet didn’t mean that death wasn’t coming.

Brasa remained between her and the door,  blocking any hope of a clean exit . Lilah widened her stance, hand reaching  again for her gun. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she realized he’d snagged it. A glance at his right hand confirmed it, the glint of the barrel shining in the low light.  _Fuck._

B rasa set it  on a nearby table, and then reached up and tugged on something she couldn’t quite see. A singular light bulb flashed, swaying gently. Lilah squinted as her eyes adjusted, blaming the way her eyes watered on the additional light. Her hands curled into fists, her palms sweating, heart thudding.  Every second stretched out into eternity as she waited for him to make his move. 

H e was squared up with her, his broad body more intimidating with every passing second. A glance downwards told her that the bullet she’d put in him was about as ineffective a s shooting him with an air pellet—he didn’t even appear to be bleeding anymore.

“You are,” he began, his voice low and rasping, “An impossibility.”

H er mouth opened, a moment passed, and then, “I’m a what?”

His jaw tightened, “An. Impossibility.”

She _did not_ have the capacity for philosophical discussions right now. Her body was filled with similar amounts of adrenaline and ire, the force of it keeping her heart beating hard in her chest. She was lucky she even had the capacity to form words, her panic and fear squeezing her throat none too gently.

Lilah looked down at her body, sighing, “I’m alive. I’m real. I’m possible.”

Was _this_ how it was going to go down? Mind games? All of her research told her that he wasn’t that kind of killer. He never played with his food. He simply killed. Quickly. Efficiently. It was this primary detail that had separated him from the others they’d tracked through the desert. Lilah had spent a long time trying to reconcile the horrific stories of his kind with the level headed determination and strategic planning of their leader.

Brasa shook his head, “Not for me.”

Purposefully stretching her jaw open, Lilah felt annoyance spark in a way that she couldn’t quite get a handle on, “Well, get over it. If you’re going to kill me, do it.”

He bared his teeth, a light chuckle escaping as he crossed his arms, leaning against the table, “I’m not going to kill you.”

Lilah refused to admit to herself that her eyes lingered a little too long on the shape of his body beneath the heavy leather. She’d seen him from afar a couple times, always either through the lens of a monitor, or the top of a building as she directed traffic for the mission. Lilah knew he was big, knew he was strong. Up close, he was far, far more terrifying. Broad in a way that made her think he could take a serious hit and stand, still in a way that told her he was confident she posed no threat. Which, she didn’t. He had said he wasn’t going to kill her. That left...

Torture.  It was going to be torture. Possibly, he wanted information about her partners in crime. Seth had prepped her that they sometimes did that,  though it was definitely out of character for him .  Lilah couldn’t handle that. She was a thief, a procurer of things, a researcher, a team manager. She wasn’t equipped to handle torture.  Fuck that, she’d do this her way.

Quick hands had the burner cell in her hand, her thumb on the speed dial, “ Okay, do you know what this is?”

His eyes followed her movement, “A cell phone.”

The slow drawl of the words, the lilt at the end. He was amused. First, pleased. Now, amused. Lilah was neither. God, she hoped Seth had gotten off the roof by now. She wouldn’t be alive to feel guilty about inadvertently killing him.

“Its the detonator for a series of pipe bombs I’ve placed around the foundation of this building. The _whole_ building. I press this button, and everything comes down around us.”

His mouth quirked, “It would take more than that to kill me.”

“But, not me,” Lilah countered. “You won’t get anything out of me if I’m dead.”

Not even bothering to pause for his answer, she dug her thumb into the button, eyes squeezing shut and waiting for the boom.  That didn’t happen. She was once again grabbed and bodily moved, air whipping across her face and snatching at her hair.  Lilah tried to pull her limbs into her body  in a movement borne of instinct , tried to move to protect herself from whatever was happening next.  She couldn’t get so much as an inch of leverage.

H is arms were in a vice around her,  and  they were moving at incredible speed through the street outside. She winced as the bombs went off, the sound hitting her in the back as much as it hit her ears. Suddenly, she was dropping down, her weight shifting around and the light completely gone. Around her, she could smell him—coffee and caramel.  His scent should not have been in the least bit soothing, but there she was—soothed. His breath was fast, but his muscle showed little to no strain. He moved with more grace than she’d ever seen,  full sprint down a dark tunnel  carrying her effortlessly .

They came to a stop in...a bunker? Lilah couldn’t get more than a cursory glance around before her brain was reminding her that humans weren’t meant to move that fast. He set her down on a chaise lounge, taking no more than two steps back. Lilah held her head in her hands, trying to ward off the vertigo that was threatening whatever was left of the dinner in her stomach. 

“Breathe deeply,” he ordered, sounding just this side of angry, which he had no right to be. 

Lilah flipped him the bird. He laughed.  She groaned.

“What are you doing?” she said, finally, when her head stopped spinning.

“Saving your life,” he replied, with bite. “Since you’re so ready to give it away.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

S he sneered, “I didn’t really have a choice about that, did I?”

“Neither do I,” he replied, adding, “It seems.”

L ilah stared at him, her brain  a little slow on the uptake , “Well, I’m so glad we’re in the same boat, then.”

Brasa’s face relaxed enough that he looked a little bewildered. Lilah counted that as a win. At the very least, she’d bought herself a few more minutes of time by setting him back on his heels just a bit.

“Are you alright?”

The question startled her, true concern lacing his tone. Lilah narrowed her gaze at him, trying to puzzle out what the fuck he meant. Pleased. Amused. Concerned. None of these things matched up with how she knew he was. How she had always been told he was.

He repeated the question, taking a step forward. Lilah leaned back, tilting her chin up as she studied his expression.  He looked like he didn’t know quite what do to do with himself. Lilah didn’t know how to take that.

“What do you want from me?” 

Better to get to the point. The faster she knew what he wanted, the faster she could agree (lie) and try to get him to let her go in the process.

He blinked, “What do you know of Xibalban mating practices?”

She sputtered, “The fuck are you talking about?”

Brasa rolled his eyes, “Obviously nothing.”

_Think, Lilah_ .  _Stall him._

“Well, its not nothing if you’re going to drag me into _wherever_ this is to talk to me about it.”

H is eyes dropped to the floor, his tongue rolling across his lips as he considered what she’d said.  Lilah had to turn her head to keep from following the motion, her cheeks warming—which made  _no sense._

Brasa’s eyes returned to hers and she noticed that his irises seemed to contract, the pupils shrinking down so that she could see his actual eye color—a deep brown. Lilah took a deep breath, desperately trying to think of something to say to keep him from killing her long enough for Seth, or Richie to find her.

“You are special,” he stated, as a matter of fact.

Everyone she knew was special. Seth and Richie were special, Kate was special, the bar staff were technically special (and immortal). Lilah was a fixer. Lilah was a good problem solver. Lilah was not special.

“Bullshit,” she replied, unable to keep her mouth from firing off the first thing that went through her head.

He laughed, his chin lifting, head rocking back. Genuine amusement, “That is an appropriate response, I suppose. It is exceedingly rare for a Xibalban to bond with a human.”

Lilah drew back, “Who’s bonding? We’re not bonding? We are miles—leagues—away from bonding.”

Head cocking to the side, Brasa eyes her with curiosity, “I wonder if you know how wrong you are—deep down, of course.”

Feeling suddenly tired, Lilah rubbed at her eyes, feeling desperate in a way that came from long term exhaustion, “Just kill me. Just...kill me. I don’t want any part of your games.”

His face grew still and grave, “No games. You are my bondmate. It is best that you come to terms with that as soon as possible.”

Bondmate.

Lilah had heard this term a few times, usually when talking with Kate. She described it as something akin to a soulmate, a relationship that was deeper than love, bordering on obsession—especially for...Lilah drew in another breath.

“That can’t be true.”

He shrugged, an elegant motion, “It is. Not believing in it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Try as she might, Lilah could not detect an ounce of deceit in him, and she was pretty good at that. Her mouth tightened as she attempted to think of a way out and coming up short. She’d have to play his game, if she wanted to live.

“And,” she said carefully, “What are you going to do about that?”

He considered it for a moment, “You’ll have to come with me.”

Out of the question.

“Come with you,” Lilah repeated lowly. Then, “I can’t do that.”

Brows lifting, he asked, “Why not?”

“Because I have a life,” she shot back, frustrated. “Because I have a job, and obligations, and people who depend on me.”

She was exaggerating just the tiniest bit. She didn’t have a life, not really. But, she did have a job, obligations, and people (three people, really).

He shifted his weight, “I know the feeling. Intimately.”

There w ere a few moments of silence. Each of them looking at the other, drawing conclusions. Lilah could see strain in his posture, leashed ferocity in the utter stillness of his body. He wanted to move. He wanted to  _do something_ . He wasn’t, for some reason.  He was standing a few feet away from her, just waiting. 

“Let’s say,” Lilah offered, thinking she might be able to negotiate, “That I accept that I am your bondmate. Is there a way for me to go back to my people, and still—I don’t know—act...as… a bondmate?”

She hated how timid she sounded, how unsure. But, she thought the question legitimate enough that he might consider it, might give in. If this was true—and that was a big ‘if’--there was no way he was going to be able to hurt her. He couldn’t. It was impossible that he could kill her. Kate had said so.

When he didn’t answer, Lilah gestured to the room around them, “Where are we?”

He moved, she flinched. He stilled.

“Its an old hideout. Unused for maybe half a century, possibly forgotten.”

She nodded, “Okay. And you know about it because…?”

One side of his mouth lifted, “I built it, a long time ago.”

Lilah nodded again, looking at the walls, the masonry cut so tightly together that it couldn’t have been mechanical. This place was old. Very old. Old as balls.

“Its good work,” she murmured, her hands curling on the lounge beneath her.

The cushion was still intact, but the fabric was beginning to fray. It was at least fifty, possibly sixty years old. The wood looked hand carved. There were a few boxes scattered around, but the room was mostly empty.

Brasa dipped his head in acknowledgment of her compliment, “There is a way that I could send you back.”

Lilah perked up, “I’m listening.”

He took a step forward, “I would need to know that you are safe at all times. I can’t be distracted by how human you are, how fragile.”

Lulled by the idea that she might come out of this unscathed, Lilah motioned for him to continue. He licked his lips, hesitating only a moment.

“I would need to initiate the bond.”

She felt her mouth purse, felt her shoulders tighten up, “How would you do that?”

He knelt in front of her, a simple and smooth motion, “A simple blood exchange. Yours for mine.”

There was nothing simple about a blood exchange. It was never, ever simple. She had to tread lightly.

Heart picking up, she whispered, “You want to bite me?”

Brasa shook his head, producing a blade from somewhere on his person, “I wouldn’t need to. A little cut would be all it would take, to start the process.”

She swallowed, “And, you’ll let me go.”

A small, fervent hope built inside her that she might be able to gain some traction. Blood exchanges may not be a little thing, but Lilah might be able to manage it. All told, a little bloodletting was a very small price to pay—if he happened to be right and they did initiate the bond, she would have to figure out a way to deal with that, eventually. Bloodletting. Wiggle room. Escape.

He nodded, his expression so sincere that she had no choice but to believe him.

Before she could change her mind, Lilah held out her arm to him, “Go ahead.”

For half a second, he looked surprised, but he quickly grasped her forearm, pushing back the sleeve of her shirt and pressing the blade into her skin. It was sharp enough that it took a second or two for the pain to kick in. She hissed as he brought her arm to his mouth, sucking gently at the wound. It was an odd feeling. Her body was telling her ‘danger’, but her brain was telling her to hold still, lest he sink his teeth into her.

He was warm—hot, even. His whole body radiated heat that burned even through the gloves on his hands. Lilah sucked in a breath as he ran his tongue over the cut, a spark of pleasure rising along the little prick of pain. Abashed, she looked anywhere but where his mouth was pressed intimately to her skin.

Very carefully, his tongue swiped once more over the little cut, his palm coming up to apply pressure. Lilah bit her lip, taken aback by the bliss on his face. At this distance, she could see the way his skin glowed a little in the low light, could see his eyelashes sweeping against his cheek as he blinked dreamily at her.

Seeming to catch himself, Brasa quickly shrugged an arm out of his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve, slicing into himself like it was nothing. Lilah hesitated, her mouth open, her breaths coming in hard.

“Only a mouthful,” he prompted, “That’s all it will take.”

Leaning down, Lilah pressed her mouth to the bleeding skin, her body resisting the urge to draw it in and swallow. Eyes closing, she forced herself to work against her own instinct, applying a little suction and pulling him across her tongue. Only a mouthful. That’s all she allowed, jerking away and making herself push it down her throat.

She wished she hadn’t done that. Lilah wished for all the world that he’d just snapped her neck in this dingy little room underneath the street. The sweetness of him, the utter honey still coating the inside of her mouth, was enough to make her want to die right there. She definitely never wanted to do that again just as much as she desperately needed more. Her tongue touched that back of her teeth, licking at the remnants so that she could taste him just a moment longer.

He swallowed audibly, “What’s your name?”

“Lilah,” she answered, brain too foggy to lie.

“I am Brasa,” he offered lowly.

She blinked, “I know.”

Brasa watched her for a few moments before standing, offering her his hand. Lilah ignored it, rising to her feet and moving around him.

“You said I could go.”

He stared at her, “I did say that.” And then, “I’ll take you to the surface.”


	2. Chapter 2

Lilah slid into a chair and regarded the lovers. Kate was sitting in Richie’s lap, rolling her eyes as he pressed intermittent kisses on her cheeks and neck. She’d grown used to their easy affection since the brothers had saved Kate from Amaru. For the first few days, Richie had hardly let go of Kate’s hand, would go where she went, snarling at anyone who came a little too close. Even now, he didn’t go very long without touching her, no matter the situation—a hand on her thigh, a the small of her back, toying with her hair. Kate seemed to take it all in stride, a soft smile that somehow made her look impossibly young.

It was Kate’s eyes that Lilah noticed first when she’d stepped through the doors of Jackknife Jed’s. They flashed with gloom, aging her in a way that in no way reflected in her actual face. Looking at her made Lilah feel so disjointed that she still struggled to hold the younger woman’s gaze. Still, despite the unease, Lilah liked Kate. She certainly made dealing with the ever-arguing brothers just a little bit easier. Lilah couldn’t so easily be out-voted any more, and that was worth the disquiet she sometimes felt in Kate’s presence.

The door to the office flung open, Seth barreling through with no regard for how it hit the shelf behind it, a few of Richie’s knickknacks shaking in their stands. He was wiping sweat from his brow, his ever present frown just a little deeper than normal. Lilah’s eyes narrowed as she watched him come closer.

“Hey, watch the merchandise,” Richie called out, one hand lifting from around Kate’s middle to gesture broadly at the memorabilia.

Fandom was the one thing that Lilah and Richie really agreed on. They’d spent a lot of time on stake outs talking Star Trek, and then Firefly, followed by a whole host of niche geeky topics. He was surprisingly insightful about the little details that made each show unique. And, Lilah had spent a lot of time in hotels watching old B horror movies to be able to hold her own when he went down a rabbit hole. It made the fact that she disagreed with him about the tenants of Jedi life acceptable, in his mind.

“We’ve got bigger problems than Obi Wan’s lightsaber, Richie.”

Seth was definitely in a mood. He might not understand Richie’s interests, and he might roll his eyes when his brother went on a tangent about canon timelines, but he at least respected Richie’s belongings enough that he didn’t intentionally screw around with them. This, whatever it was, was serious. Lilah eyed him narrowly, waiting.

Eyes vaguely betrayed, Richie muttered, “Its Mace Windu.”

Kate patted Richie’s arm lightly, saying, “What’s the problem?”

Rounding his desk, Seth sat heavily. After a deep sigh, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, tossing it on the desk in front of him. It bounced, making a soft ‘shhh’ sound as it slid across the pressed wood of the tabletop.

“We got a message today,” he explained, “And I don’t know what to make of it.”

Lilah leaned forward and plucked it up with two fingers. The paper was a heavy vellum, thick woven. She unfolded it, curious. The ink was a deep red, the lettering thick. As she brought it closer to read, Lilah caught a fragrance that had followed her in the weeks since their last failed mission.

_Oh, no._

The letter was meticulously worded. The writing thick and bold, swirling softly around the crosses. Formal. Elegant. Commanding. _Brasa._

Lilah read and re-read it, “He’s asking for peace.”

She looked at Seth, brows lifted in surprise. Then, she stood, stepped to Richie’s desk, and handed it to the younger brother. All the while, she tried to keep her face as neutral as possible. Lilah was grateful that Seth never bothered with the overhead lights, that only the lamps on either desk illuminated the room. Her face was hot, her hands shaking. She didn’t know how to stand so as to draw no attention to herself while she internally panicked.

“He’s playing a game,” Seth said as he opened a drawer in his desk, pulling out a bottle, yanking out the stopper, and drinking straight from it. “Its a trap.”

R ichie took a few moments to read the letter before Kate took it from him. She stood  and read it, as well .  Lilah watched her face, trying to discern her reaction.  Kate chewed her thumbnail as her eyes flicked over the page, her brows together.  A shadow passed over her expression.

“No,” Kate uttered so low that Lilah almost didn’t hear it, “He’s really asking for peace.”

Lilah didn’t have the time to think about how she might know that, or the implications. Or, how she might feel about those implications.

Seth scoffed, “How the fuck do you know that?”

Setting the letter down on Richie’s desk, Kate shrugged, “I spent a lot of time with him when I was...when she was inside me.” She sniffed, “Even though Amaru thought they were bullshit, he obeys the old laws. This is a formal call for peace talks. He’s written it in his own blood.”

Lilah felt her eyes widen, shocked that Kate could tell whose blood was on the paper. Shocked even further that someone would write a letter in their literal blood. Shocked still further that she _cared_ how he might have procured his own blood in enough supply to write such a letter.

There were a few side effects from Kate’s possession, little quirks that Kate would sometimes display without really thinking. She’d stand up way too fast, know who might walk through the door next, hear conversations from the next room. Lilah did her best to just roll with it, but this was a little bit too freaky for Lilah’s normal ‘roll with it’ sensibilities. She deliberately set it aside, hoping that she wouldn’t need to examine the thought later.

Richie lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke through his nose, “Why now? We’ve spent the last six months fighting and killing each other, and now he wants to talk peace.”

Lilah sat down, folding her hands in her lap as she tried very hard not to think this was about her. She could not be so self-centered as to think that Brasa would give up a war just because she happened to be on the other side. A war he was, by all accounts, winning as the Gecko’s ceded more and more territory to the culebras he seemed to govern. There had to be another explanation. A trap, maybe, a false sense of security.

“Alright,” Seth drawled, “We get him in a room and gank him.”

Kate gasped, looking horrified, “We have a chance to get real progress, here. Do you _want_ to fight forever?”

Lilah definitely knew the answer to that question. Seth’s entire life was a fight—physical or otherwise. He wasn’t comfortable if there wasn’t some sort of conflict to battle through, his brother at his side. Even if they achieved peace, he’d be at someone’s throat within twenty four hours. It was both endearing and utterly frustrating to watch him cycle through the same motions over and over.

Seth rose, leaning his hands on the desk, “You, more than anyone, have a reason to want  every one of those snakes dead.”

Sneering, Kate crossed her arms, “I, more than anyone, have a reason to want all of this to stop. I don’t want to see any more death.”

Behind her, Richie shifted uneasily in his chair. Lilah took each of them in, knowing there was far more history than she was privy to playing out right in front of her. It left her feeling like she couldn’t make a good decision,  didn’t have enough data to create a strategy.  This was not her preferred method of moving through life.  S he  remained  still,  waiting .

“We should meet with him,” Kate asserted, hip cocking to the side.

I t was not a rare occasion that Kate would insist that they act in a certain way. She had a strong moral compass that clashed with the brothers’ more criminal predilections. More often than not, Kate centered them, kept them from going too far. Lilah was grateful. She had never been successful in stemming off their momentum, once they got started. 

“Absolutely not,” Seth shot back, his mouth a firm line.

L ilah surprised herself by adding, “I agree with Seth.”

Richie stubbed out his cigarette, “I’m with Kate.”

This was not surprising. Richie tended to side with Kate on most things.  Lilah caught the look he sent Kate, though Kate was still looking at Seth. His eyes were following the line of her petite body, admiring in a way that made Lilah look away, embarrassed. 

Seth circled his desk, leaning his hip against it, “Two against two. How’re we going to break the tie?”

There was a beat of silence, then Richie stood and offered up his fist, “Best out of three?”

When Richie beat Seth two to one, Seth gave him a hardy ‘fuck you’ and strode from the room. Richie  heaved a beleaguered sigh and followed him. Lilah dropped her head in her hands,  boggled by the decision making skills of her partners.  Rock, paper scissors... _ honestly _ .

“Why don’t you want to meet with them?”

Lilah lifted her eyes at the question, feeling her ch est constrict, “I won’t have to do the actual meeting, Kate.”  _ Lie, lie, lie, Lilah, _ “I just don’t think we’ll be successful.”

Kate tilted her head to the side, “You think its a trap?”

Lilah grabbed onto that line of thinking. It was logical, far more logical than ‘No, Kate. I just don’t want to meet up with someone who claims I am his bondmate and with whom I have exchanged blood’. Even in her head, it sounded so incredibly stupid. Not to mention the fact that she’d been hiding it long enough that admitting it would only lead to suspicion.

“I think Seth is too hot headed,” Lilah clarified quickly, “I think that it’ll fall apart before it even gets started.”

There, that was a convincing lie that was pretty grounded in enough truth that even Lilah half believed it. She very carefully did not study Kate’s face to see if the lie had landed.

Kate moved closer, her ancient gaze peering at Lilah carefully, “You’re right.”

_Oh. Okay._

“Thank you.”

“You need to go with them.”

_Ah, fuck_ .

“What?”

Kate nodded, her expression hardening, “You go with them, keep things level, make this work.”

“Me?” Lilah didn’t like how high her voice came out. She cleared her throat, “No, you know them better than I do. You go. Bring me whatever contract they draw up, I’ll red line it, make sure its fair.”

That was her role. Look over the game plan, find the flaws, work out the kinks. In that, Lilah was comfortable and safe. No need to put herself back in a room with Brasa. No need to let this get even more out of hand. No need for the messiness that would come from that.

Shaking her head, Kate took a step back, “I can’t. I can’t face him. What I did to him was,” she searched for words, “terrible.”

The sudden turn of Kate’s tone, the way her face screwed up in real disgust, made Lilah sit up and stake notice. Where had this come from?

She inhaled, trying to parse the words, “What does that mean?”

Kate’s eyes were focused on the middle distance, her mouth quivering, “Amaru loved torture, all kinds of torture. She didn’t care who it was that she hurt. I—she liked,” Another breath, “Brasa was blood bound to her, she could make him do things, do _anything_. She never got her hands dirty, but him…”

Lilah waited for more, but Kate simply stopped speaking.  She looked shell shocked, tears welling up.  God, but Lilah had been completely fooled by Kate’s frequent smiles and clear headedness. She hadn’t known how much trauma the hell queen had put Kate through, hadn’t even thought that Kate was conscious of the things that she’d done while trapped inside her own body. Moved to action, she stood and embraced Kate,  say ing to her the only comfort she could think to give .

“Its the past. And, it wasn’t you.”  Then, “Are you still blood bound?”

S he felt like real shit for asking, but she needed to know what Brasa’s relationship was with Kate, and if it would make their own relationship (did they even have a relationship?) more complicated.  Kate made a soft sound in the negative  and Lilah let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.  That was one complication she had, thankfully, avoided.

Kate’s body was taut, “When she first brought me back, when I met him, I felt the power I had over him. And, she abused it.  I drained him dry that first night, to regain her strength. A fter three days, when he managed to stand up off the ground, she did it again. Because she could.” Kate pulled back and looked at Lilah, “ That wasn’t even the worst of it.  How can I look him in the eye after all that?”

Lilah shook her head, “Like I said, it  wasn’t you. And, if he really wants to talk peace, he’ll set it aside.  If not, fuck ‘im.”

T hat, at least, was the truth. Lilah had been fighting his kind of less than a year and she was tired of it. She wanted peace. She wanted to go on nice, normal jobs—jewel theft, a bank heist, possibly even some fine art that they could sell on the black market. Stuff that was in her wheelhouse, in her comfort zone. If he was going to hold Kate responsible for the actions of Amaru, then he wasn’t worth negotiating with.  Full stop.

K ate loosed a soundless  laugh, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

Lilah deliberately did not take any care in how she dressed. She wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, same as she always did. Tennis shoes. Ponytail. Chapstick. Foregoing a purse, she slipped some cash and her cell phone into her pocket, refusing to look at herself in the mirror hanging on the far wall of her bedroom.

The room, itself, was small, with an en suite bathroom, tucked into the back of the restaurant. It was one of the only occupied rooms on the main floor as Lilah was one of the few people living there full time who could have windows. Her queen sized bed was pushed up against the far wall, covered in blankets and pillows. Lilah had spent a very long time living in motel rooms, jumping from team to team, job to job. When she finally got a place where she felt comfortable enough to settle down, she realized how much a creature of comfort she actually was.

With her cut of every job she went on, Lilah made a single purchase towards her little sanctuary. Her most recent score was a candle that she hid behind a stack of books on the nightstand next to her bed. Caramel Macchiato. She’d picked it up in the store, inhaled, and felt something inside snap so hard that she had to buy it immediately. Lilah didn’t have the courage to burn it, too afraid the others would somehow figure it out. So, she would occasionally slip the top from the glass and take a breath before replacing it carefully. Her own little guilty pleasure.

Thinking that she couldn’t stall anymore, Lilah flicked off the light and headed out into the bar proper, noting that she was the last to arrive.

“Is this how you want to take a meeting with our mortal enemy?” Seth said as he shrugged on his coat.

Lilah glared, “I don’t want to take this meeting at all. Kate’s right, though. You need a voice of reason in that room.”

The woman, herself, wasn’t present. Lilah hadn’t pressed her for any further details of her time spent possessed by an immortal being. Kate hadn’t offered, either. But, Lilah noted that Kate did look at her just a little differently from time to time. Something softer in her gaze. Something secret. Lilah took those looks and hid them away from prying eyes. She only hoped that the others were too preoccupied with their own shit to notice.

“Hey,” Richie cut in, “I can be a voice of reason.”

“You’re just as likely as he is to go in guns blazing,” Lilah responded as she walked decidedly past them and out into the night.

The sleek black car Seth had washed every weekend by one of the bar staff was parked haphazardly in the mostly empty lot, the bulk of their usual crowd not due for a few hours. She opened the driver’s side door and shoved the seat forward, sliding in to the back of the coupe. Seth slapped at the seat, and Lilah pulled back so that it didn’t hit her in the knees. He dropped down into it and shut the door, Richie not far behind.

In the few days since the letter had arrived, Lilah had done a remarkable amount of research. Brasa had set up a base of operations that looked more or less permanent. What surprised her was how close it was to them, two hours’ drive through the desert. Like Seth and Richie, he’d purchased a bar as a front and was operating some sort of company from it. Trucks came in on Tuesdays, delivering product that was packed in large metal boxes. She never got a clear look at it, though she was tempted to send one of the culebras that was loyal to the Geckos out there to get a peek. She noted that culebras visited throughout the week en masse, a startlingly large number, given that the bar wasn’t even close to the nearest town. Some of them looked to be transient, but there were others that looked like they had settled in the region.

The product never left, though, which was weird. It came in, like clockwork, but nothing ever left. Lilah had followed one of trucks to a gas station and had gotten close enough to lay down a GPS tracker, but the thing had failed. She still couldn’t figure out why.

They weren’t using the normal methods for money laundering, either. The bar could be considered a cash establishment, but their bank accounts looked solid, at least on the surface. If Lilah could get a good look at their books, she might be able to figure out how Brasa was supporting a business that was serving the majority of the culebra population outside of the Gecko stronghold at Jed’s.

“You’re awfully quiet,” came Richie’s voice, a teasing note beneath the words.

Lilah snapped out of her thoughts, looking at the back of his head, “I’m just thinking about how we’re going to approach this.”

Seth lifted a hand, forefinger stabbing at the air, “We’re going to let him talk. He’s got a plan, we’ll hear it, and then decide if we want to be a part of it.”

So, the plan they’d had at the beginning was still the plan. That, at least, was comforting.

“And if we don’t?” she edged quietly.

He shrugged, “We get the hell out of there.”

Easier said than done. They were going in virtually blind. No idea of how many were inside, no idea of the firepower they might have, and only one way in or out.

“And if its a trap?”

Richie held up a pistol she knew had been hand crafted with specialized bullets that would take down a culebra, if fired at the heart. His smile was self-satisfied in the way that told her he’d forgotten that she was still human and very killable.

“We got back up.”

Lilah’s jaw worked, “You’ve got back up. I’ve got zilch.”

This was true. Lilah didn’t much like guns, but she carried them whenever they went out to do a job. She never recovered the gun Brasa had taken from her, and every pistol she’d fired since then hadn’t felt right. Her thigh felt bare without the holster, her body exposed. The rush order she’d put in with their local arms dealer for the exact same gun hadn’t yet arrived and she was too stubborn to bring a gun that didn’t even fit in her hand right. Her aim, already questionable, would be shit, anyways.

Seth made a derisive sound, leaning over to dig into a bag on the floorboard by Richie’s feet.

“You know, I could get that for you,” Richie drawled. Lilah knew that tone, a soft needling that he sometimes resorted to when he wanted to get a rise out of his brother. It was an attempt to lighten the mood. An attempt that did not work.

“I got it,” Seth grunted as he righted himself, frowning.

Through the seats, he handed Lilah a knife tucked into a sheath, “Take that. At least its something.”

Lilah ran her hand over it, the handle was intricate silver, the leather worn but still in good condition. There were little straps that she could affix to her forearm so that she could hide the weapon with her sleeve.

Carefully, she buckled the knife in place, pulling her sleeve down over it and holding her arm aloft to ensure it was as concealed as it could be. Lilah wasn’t much good in a fight, but she knew one or both of them would cover her while she ran. It was a testament to how fucked they thought this might go that they’d even brought her along. She was a good talker, far better than either of them. If they were actually going to broker peace, she’d need to work as a lead.

When they arrived, Lilah stared at it. The parking garage was the only way in or out. The entrance was wide enough that trucks could back right up to drop doors, unload, and then drive right back out again. Seth pulled in, spun the car around, and backed into a parking spot with a clear view of the exit. At least he was being careful. This boded well for whatever happened next. She glanced at the back of his head. He was sober, too, which also gave them a leg up in this mess. Drunk or high, Seth couldn’t be controlled. Sober, at least she had a chance.

Lilah waited for Seth to step out of the car, taking his hand as helped her up. He pulled her close, leveling a serious look at her.

“First sign of trouble, you run. Richie and I can handle ourselves, but you run. Got it?”

He’d said the same thing on their first job, robbing a minor drug dealer to get some extra cash for inventory at the bar. Lilah smiled and said the same thing that she’d said to him all those months ago.

“Duly noted, boss.”

He looked at her another moment longer, then nodded and let her go, shutting the car door and joining his brother near the front end.

“Lilah, entrance?”

She nodded towards an elevator, “Only way in is through there. No stairs down, I checked.”

On cue, the doors opened and a man in a three piece suit stepped out. The suit was immaculately tailored, a soft baby blue that was accented by the purple of his button up and tie. Lilah scanned him—Rolex, Italian leather shoes, what looked like a real diamond in the tie clip. The whole outfit screamed money in a way that was just this side of ostentatious. She caught the pinky ring— _the other side_ of ostentatious, then.

“Mr. Gecko, Mr. Gecko,” he looked at Lilah, “Ms. McNamara.”

_Well, shit_ . 

She knew she’d only given Brasa her first name, but here this guy was, calling her by her last. Lilah frowned at him. She wasn’t the only one who had done her research.

“Who the fuck are you?”

She almost made a sound of censure at the bite in Seth’s tone, but they were already moving. The brothers stepped in front of her, working as a unit. Richie put his hands in his pockets, and she knew he was casting the man a hard look. Seth’s arms were at his sides, but his coat was unbuttoned so that he could get at his firearm faster.

“You gonna answer?”

The man, shorter than both brothers, shorter than Lilah (even though she was tall for a woman), was effortlessly cool, “I am Javier. Lord Brasa has asked that I bring you to the conference room.”

_Lord Brasa_ , Lilah scoffed to herself. Fucking pretentious fucks.

“Well,” Seth prompted with a flicking gesture of his hand, “Lead the way.”

Javier smiled, fingers touching the button of his jacket nearest to the lapel, “Of course. If you please.”

The elevator doors were still open, the carriage looming in front of them. Lilah resisted the urge to touch the knife strapped to her forearm as she followed all three men inside. The floors were marble, the fixtures glinting with gold. More money screaming at her. Where did it come from? How were they running their scheme?

There was a ding and the door opened to a dimly lit bar. The tables, the bar top, the stage, everything was cast in red glow. It muted the dark of the wood, softened every edge in a way that made the room blur in a dreamy way. Lilah kept close to her friends, moving through the room to the back, where Javier opened a door.

The hallway was just as dark as the room behind them. Neither of the two men in front of her hesitated, so Lilah continued following, flinching when the door closed behind her. Javier led them through a few turned to a nondescript door, which he opened, gesturing for them to enter.

Catching the way Javier looked closely at her as she passed, Lilah breathed deeply, barely containing the growing disdain for the man. He smiled serenely. She got the distinct feeling he knew way more than she wanted him to know, and that unsettled her. They were already on an uneven playing field. Every second she spent in his presence made her feel more unbalanced.

Brasa was already sitting at a long rectangular table when they arrived. He stood as they approached, one hand remaining on the wood. Lilah noted that he wasn’t wearing his coat, though the gloves remained. He was, as seemed his habit, dressed in all black.

“Welcome,” he said amiably, though he didn’t smile.

Seth’s gait slowed to a swagger, and Lilah very nearly rolled her eyes as he slid a chair out and sat, Richie taking his place beside him. She pulled out the chair on the other side of Seth, sitting carefully. Brasa waited a beat, then sat as well.

“What do you want?” Seth asked.

Brasa leaned forward on his forearms, hands folded, “I can tell you what I don’t want. I don’t want another endless war. I don’t want to see my people hunted. I don’t want any more killing between us.”

Lilah watched his face as he talked. His voice was calm, even in a way that told her he wasn’t attempting to dissemble. His body language was guarded, but that was to be expected.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Seth replied, jaw set.

Brasa looked at him, unblinking, “I want peace. I have people to care for. My attention needs to be on them, not on fighting off every attempt to kill us.”

Seth smirked, “I wouldn’t say ‘attempt’. We’ve been pretty successful.”

Richie nodded, “Very successful, in some cases.”

Lilah felt her mouth thin at the boast. Telling Brasa that they had been killing off his people wasn’t conducive. She wondered if they intended to talk peace at all, or if this was a very dangerous scheme to irk their enemy. Her fingers itched to touch her knife. She resisted, barely.

“That’s right, Richie. Got a whole nest, what, six months ago?” Seth’s tone was conversational, bordering on jovial.

“We did, indeed.”

_Jesus_ , she thought.  _We’re all going to die down here._

Brasa’s eyes closed briefly, and Lilah could tell he was annoyed, though he telegraphed nothing with his body.

“The point is,” he asserted, his fingers flexing with the third word, “I’m offering to stop the fight. A complete cease fire, if you will.”

“Why?”

_Oh, God, why are you talking?_

Brasa’s eyes flicked to her, his mouth twitching.  Lilah sensed his amusement, felt i t brush against her mind as clearly as any physical touch. Beneath the table, she lifted her toes,  the urge to haul ass out of the room riding her hard .

“My kind were made for war,” he explained, “Bred for it, bound to it. We had no choice in the matter. Now, I can make that choice. I can stop the cycle, at least in this dimension.”

L ilah very carefully avoided the fact that he had just confirmed there were other dimensions. Though she had gotten a little background information on Xibalba, she hadn’t yet put it together that it was co-existing somewhere that wasn’t Earth.  That put a lot of her reading into a very strange and very mind bending context.  _Focus._

“That’s it?”

His head cocked to the side, “Does there need to be more?”

“There’s always more with you people,” Seth interrupted blithely. “We just don’t know what it is yet.”

Brasa smiled a very small smile, “Perhaps. But, at this time, this is all that is on the table.” He tapped the wood with a knuckle.

“So,” Richie prompted, pulling a pack of cigs out of his jacket pocket. He tapped one out along with a Zippo lighter. “What are your terms?”

L eaning back a little in his seat, Brasa lifted a shoulder, “As I said. Complete cease fire on both sides. We’ll outline our territories and keep to our sides.”

Richie took a drag, considering. Lilah watched him mull over the words, his keen intellect working his way through the problem.

Seth sneered, “You gonna keep killing humans, while you’re at it.”

Brasa shook his head, “No need. We have our own supply.”

_The trucks._ That’s what he’d been bringing in on Tuesdays. A blood supply, but from where? The shipments were massive, would feed far more than she’d seen coming in through the garage. Unless, there was another entrance, something underground, perhaps?  She hadn’t seen anything, not even in the blueprints she’d managed to snag from the city.

Seth looked unconvinced, “You say you’ve got people. How many? How are you going to feed them all?”

“That is my concern,” Brasa answered levelly. “Your concern is that your people adhere to the terms of our agreement.”

Richie flicked ash, saying, “I’ve got some terms to add.”

Brasa’s brows lifted, a silent urge for the other man to continue.

“I want no interference with bondmates. None whatsoever.”

Lilah had no control over the way her hea r t thudded, and she knew two of the three males in the room were hearing it.  Though he didn’t look her way, she felt Brasa’s attention shift over to her, felt heat rolling towards her from where he was sitting.

H is lips parted, “How do you mean?”

Richie stubbed his cigarette out on the wooden table, “We both know I’ve completed my bond with Kate. I don’t want her to be a target for retribution.”

_Ah, there it is._ Lilah wondered if Richie would bring Kate into this. She was the silent voice in the room, a key player in absentia. With what she knew about their interaction, it made sense that Brasa might want a little vengeance.

“Kate,” Brasa began, curtly, “Is not Amaru. And, neither am I.” He drew in a breath, “But, I agree that bondmates must be left out of any disagreement, no matter how fierce. They are too precious to be used as bargaining chips.”

Richie stared hard, his mouth thin, nostrils flared. After several long seconds, he gave a nod, indicating his satisfaction.

“Are there other terms you want to discuss?” Brasa asked.

Seth gave a little sound of thought, “I’m sure we’ll think of something along the way.”

Here, Brasa’s eyes lit up, “I agree. I would like to implement the use of an ambassador during the drafting of our treaty. I will send one of mine to you, and you will send one of yours to me.”

At this, Lilah felt Javier step up to the table, though he didn’t say anything. Seth glanced at the man, tongue touching the back of his teeth. Lilah could feel how they’d been boxed in, though she doubted either of them knew just how it had happened. Or, why.

“Why would we need to do that?” This came from Richie, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

For the first time since they’d entered the room, Brasa relaxed. Lilah felt a little jolt of fear go through her. Relaxed was not going to go well for them.

“I have either brokered or been present during the brokering of many, many peace treaties.”

“And, how many of them have you broken?” Seth bit out.

Lilah felt her throat work around a noise she’d been holding back for a while. A short,  guttural sound that meant ‘shut the fuck up’.  They were almost through this, and if he could keep from pissing Brasa off, they could maybe end out with a good deal.

Ignoring the comment, Brasa continued, “ In my experience, the first draft is rarely accepted as the final. It will go through several revisions before we add our signatures.  The use of ambassadors is standard practice.”

Seth took a moment, staring Brasa down, “ Who do you suggest?”

Brasa lifted a hand, indicating the man beside him, “Javier will suffice for us. He knows my expectations. And for yourself?”

“Richie’ll do it.”

The man in question scoffed, leaning over to talk lowly with his brother, “I’m supposed to be running point on our other projects. How would I have time to draft a peace treaty?”

“You don’t sleep, Richard.”

“I do, too, sleep.”

“Like two hours a day.”

“That’s still sleep, you asshole.”

Lilah touched her temple, knowing that they’d come to an agreement eventually. She’d just have to listen to them bitching about it for a bit first. Across the table, Brasa hid his smile behind his hand, dark eyes glancing at her. She avoided his gaze.

“This project will likely take several months, and extensive ongoing meetings,” Brasa said eventually, leaning his chin on his hand casually, “Can you spare your brother for that long?”

S eth paused in his bickering, his brain working around the problem. Lilah watched his expression carefully, waiting.  The furrow between his brows relaxed and she knew he had it.  He looked at her and she knew she was going to hate what came out of his mouth next.

“McNamara,” he muttered. She was already shaking her head, “You do this all the time.”

“I negotiate our cut when we pull jobs, Seth. Its not the same thing.”

“Close enough,” he responded quickly, turning in his chair to look at her head on. “You know what we’ll accept, anything else you can run past us.”

L ilah stared at him, though her attention was straying to the heat creeping up the side of her neck to her cheek. It took effort to keep from shifting away from it, the unfamiliar weight disconcerting.  She felt her resolve crumbling under the pressure.

“Seth,” she breathed, “Richie’s right. You’re an asshole.”

Then, she turned in her chair and faced Brasa, “I’ll do it.”

She  sensed  more than saw his satisfaction.  They had just given him something he wanted.  Lilah was unsure how she felt about that. 

“Good,” Brasa announced, rising. “I have an initial draft in my office. I also have a separate office for your ambassador. I will show her both, and then you may be on your way.”

“Hold up,” Seth said, rising, “You’re not taking her anywhere.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lilah grumbled, already circling around the table. “Besides, he’s got a lot to lose, if he kills me.”

N o one needed to know just how much Brasa stood to lose with Lilah’s death.  She let the implication stand in the deadened air, though.  With more confidence than she felt, Lilah stood before him, waiting for him to lead the way.

After casting her another assessing look, Brasa turned and moved towards the back of the room. Another set of doors, another hallway, and she was stepping to a massive room that looked like it was carved right out of the earthen stone. She was entering it from the side, about ten feet of rock separating the front of the room from a pool of water that was bisected by a walkway. Cast once more in a red glow, the walkway led to singular desk with two plush chairs. 

“Good work out there, by the way,” she commented, uncomfortable with the extended silence.

He looked back at her and smiled.  Lilah had to swallow back the shock of how young he looked when he smiled like that.  She knew he was ancient, knew that he’d seen things she couldn’t even fathom, and yet...his boyish pleasure at the compliment was so evident that it washed all of that away.

“That wasn’t work,” he replied, moving towards the desk, his hands slipping into his pockets, “That was a negotiation.”

Her eyes narrowed, “For the treaty?”

“For you,” he answered, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Lilah bristled, “I thought bondmates weren’t going to be used as bargaining chips.”

Brasa huffed a short breath, turning and leaning against the desk, “Its been weeks, Lilah. Forgive me if the separation has made me brash.”

What he’d done wasn’t brash. It was cool, calculated, efficient.  He’d maneuvered not only the peace he sought, but a guarantee of her nearness within ten minutes. She was in over her head.  She was in way, way over her head.

Licking her lips, Lilah approached him with all the wariness that she would give a wild animal, “What do you want from me?”

He looked at her a moment, “Time.”

“Time?”

“Yes,” he confirmed with a dip of his chin, “Just time.”

She thought about it, “Then, I need something from you.”

Lifting from the desk, he stood up straight, “Name it.”

“Discretion. I know those men out there. I know what they are capable of. If you really want peace between our people, they cannot know how you and I are...connected.”

He considered it, and she could tell that he was on the verge of refusing. This was a proud male that she was dealing with, someone who’d fought a long time to get where he was. The little bit that she knew about bondmates made the request seeming somehow unreasonable.

“You ask too much,” he murmured, taking a step towards her. “I have already given you more than I should.”

She was bewildered, “A few weeks? Is that more than you should? This is my life we are talking about.”

Heat blew at her, his anger a physical thing, “This is my  _nature_ we are talking about.”

His words were lowly spoken, but filled with such an undertone of severity that Lilah couldn’t bring herself to reply.

“I am Xibalban,” his hand cut across the air, “It is my right to claim my bondmate when I find her, no matter the circumstances.”

“And, what about my rights?” Lilah sneered, arms crossing. 

Brasa took a deep breath, centering himself. Then, he took another breath, his eyes focused and she could tell he’d already formed another deal to make, “I’ll need something from you, to keep this secret.”

Ice moved glacially down her spine, a cold kind of fear. Her skin pricked with awareness. She jerked her head to the side, indicated for him to continue.

“Blood,” he stated, “Blood and bond.”

There was a soft lilt in the way he said it, a hint of ritual. Lilah’s jaw clenched as she waited for more information.

“I need to assured of your safety, of your strength, when you are not with me. I have many enemies, and if they discover you are human—if I haven’t fortified you properly—they will kill you. We will have a blood exchange when we meet, every time. That is what I want from you.”

_Blood. Time. Discretion._

Lilah nodded, “Done.”

He was satisfied, but he was not pleased. Lilah could read it in the shift of his body, the ash in his scent. She waited, unsure of how happy she was with the arrangement.

“We will begin now,” he announced, a blade already in his hand. 

Lilah closed her eyes, working to keep her instinctive reaction at bay.  An angry Xibalban with a knife was not to be taken lightly.  Before she could react, he appeared in front of her, taking her arm—the arm with the knife strapped to it.  Lilah didn’t have the ability to pull back as he lifted the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She did have the ability to glare at him as he laughed.

“What were you going to do with this?”

“Well,” she deadpanned, “Shooting you didn’t quite work out last time. I figured another method might be more effective.”

He flashed his teeth at her, “I applaud the effort.”

“Thanks.”

Letting go of one arm, he took up the other, peeking underneath the fabric. Satisfied that she wasn’t harboring any other weapons, Brasa pushed it to her elbow, glancing at her for her readiness. Lilah gave a nod, hissing when the blade went through her skin. This cut was deeper than the last, though jus t as precise. He brought the wound to his mouth, sucking gently.

Lilah didn’t know how to feel about the way her body reacted to watching him drink from her.  There was an alien revulsion to the act, itself. Mentally, her brain screamed that she was in danger, that she had to get away. The primal part of her brain, the thing that was deeper and stronger than any other, ensured that she stayed right where she was. 

H e groaned against her skin, and she felt the vibration of it go right through her, rolling along her arm and over her chest. His body was so close, the scent of coffee and caramel all she could sense. Lilah kept trying to breathe, kept trying to remain upright. When she wavered, his arm went around her waist, pulling her into a broad chest. Her free hand gripped his shirt for balance. 

Too late, and too soon, he pulled away, his tongue lingering over the cut a moment longer. Lilah swallowed, eyes wide, when he looked at her. The black had taken over the whites of his eyes again, and though his lips weren’t pulled back over them, she knew his fangs had dropped. She held her breath.

Without a word, Brasa slipped the button at the cuff of his shirt through the buttonhole and rolled it up, blade slicing through his forearm.  She almost said no.  She almost shoved him away and ran full sprint back to Seth and Richie.  His eyes stopped her. 

Brasa’s eyes, black as they were, were so wide and beguiled that Lilah  had to stop and stare. He was looking at her with such unrestrained awe, such grateful affection that she made no move to resist as he guided her to his own skin. 

L ilah wished it had been a fluke. She wished that her memory of how good he tasted was so distorted by adrenaline and fear that it couldn’t even come close to reality.  He was...exquisite.  Honey thick, and twice as sweet. 

S he had to stop this. She had to get control.  Turning her head, Lilah tried to  get away. His hand slipped to the back of her neck below her ponytail, a firm grasp.

“More than a mouthful, this time,” he murmured against her temple, “More, Lilah.”

G od help her, but she took it. Swallow after swallow, her eyes squeezed shut, words of praise sounding her ear.  When he finally allowed her to lift her chin, she struggled to breathe. She didn’t know how long she’d been at it, only that his taste remained, coating every inch of her mouth.

H is arms held her steady, “You did so good. So good.”

Lilah felt her body overheat, sweat forming on her temples.  His face swam in her vision, so close she could feel  the vibration of every word he said .  Though her sight was blurred by the intensity of what she was feeling, Lilah could absolutely tell that he was still wearing that expression of awe, that he was looking at her as if she were the entire world. And that scared her. 

Drawing on years of experience with unstable and dangerous situations, Lilah righted herself, rasping, “I need to get back. They won’t wait for long.”

Brasa ran his hands down her arms, the action serving to compose his demeanor. Assured that she could stand on her own, he stepped away towards his desk where he picked up a thick file.

Handing it to her, he explained, “This is the first draft. Take a look at it and we’ll discuss edits.”

Javier was standing near the door as they walked out. He handed Lilah a Gatorade with a smile. Lilah’s eyes cut at him as she took it, thumb and forefinger already twisting off the cap. She’d have to get more details on that man as soon as possible. He was definitely more than he seemed.

It wasn’t until they were almost home that Richie finally turned around in the front seat and cast her a curious gaze, “What happened in there? You haven’t said anything.”

Lilah caught Seth looking at her in the rearview.

She shrugged, “He showed me an office and handed me the file. He wants to see our edits as soon as we have them ready. I’m going to look at this tomorrow and let you read what I come up with.”

He wasn’t satisfied with her answer. Lilah could tell by the way he sucked his teeth. She didn’t care. She had much, much bigger things to worry about.


	4. Chapter 4

In hindsight, leaving her perch was the wrong decision. Lilah knew that. But, she couldn’t sit on the roof and watch her friends get ambushed. A move she wouldn’t even have to make if they’d been wearing the comms, like she asked. But, no, the effort it took to synch several ear pieces to the same network, safeguard that network from outsiders, just so they’d not only have extra eyes but extra ears didn’t mesh with their old school style.

It wasn’t as if Lilah was going in completely blind or empty handed. She’d gotten her order in the previous day and spent a little time with it, firing off a few rounds. Richie had given her a clip full of shiny new bullets, and Lilah thought it was time to use them.

She stepped out onto the street, reflexively looking both ways. It was a useless gesture. The little pack of warehouses was abandoned, the perfect place for a nest to form. This particular nest was working its way through the nearest town, picking off the homeless and the outsiders first. In a few months, they would be hitting the homes, the schools, and the churches. Seth was lucky he’d gotten the tip about it early, before they could take too many.

As quietly as she could, Lilah crept to the window of the building opposite where she’d set up her computer and the controls for demolition. The plan was to funnel them all into the building as they returned from feeding, then blow the place, taking the whole nest out in one go. They (Lilah) expected that it would take some time to get the explosives placed. What they didn’t expect was an early return of a few culebras. Before Lilah could get a word of warning out, Seth had hauled himself down the stairs from their makeshift hub on the rooftop, followed by Richie, who had given a long suffering sigh and followed suit, tucking his glasses into the breast pocket of his jacket.

Lilah peered through the window, eyes wide as she took in the fight. They were doing pretty well. Richie had his game face on, fangs flashing as he threw someone across the room. Seth had another on the ground, beating them senseless with what looked like a tire iron. All in all, not too bad a situation. She still didn’t understand why Seth had needed to come down here to begin with, but he had never been one to engage in a risk analysis—not when he could solve the problem with his fists.

As she continued to watch him fight, Lilah caught the anger in his face. He raged against his opponents, swinging hard and fast, giving no quarter. He’d been doing that a lot, lately—sublimated fury bursting forth untethered by any kind of control. Long after the battle was over, Seth would continue to fight with a singular focus. It was a blind spot that had caused this very situation.

The group of culebras she’d seen sneaking in through the side were approaching fast, picking up Seth and tossing him off their friend. Lilah did the only thing she could think of. She leaned down and grabbed a rock from the ground, used it to break the window, and took aim. The first shot took one by surprise, his body falling to the floor for Seth to finish off.

Looking over his shoulder, Seth yelled, “The fuck are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass,” she shot back, firing another round. Followed by an irritated murmur, “Since you can’t seem to follow a simple plan.”

With ruthless efficiency, the brothers took out the remaining culebras. Lilah held her position as she watched, picking off one or two more and wounding another enough for Richie to punch through his chest and pull out his heart. She was so focused on the fight inside that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming towards her. It wasn’t until she was yanked by the collar of her sweatshirt that she even knew there was another person there.

Stumbling back, Lilah hit the ground with an ‘oof’, her gun slipping from her hands with the impact. She looked at it, dejected, her brain helpfully telling her that she was a literal cliche at that moment. Her opponent kicked it away with a laugh, joining her in the world of walking cliches.

Angry, Lilah scrambled to standing. He was ugly in a way that told her that he was ugly even when he wasn’t baring his fangs at her. Long hair, cut haphazardly in what might have been a mullet. Plaid shirt, jeans, boots. All dirty, somewhat torn. She could smell him, even from ten feet away.

“Pretty girl,” he growled, “I’m gonna love draining the life outta you.”

Did every bad guy have a book of one-liners that they studied from? Lilah had heard this particular one about a hundred times and it got old by round four. Just once, she’d like to hear a little creativity in the threat to her life. She sneered at him taking a step back and assessing. The knife Richie had given her was strapped to her forearm. Lilah could use that, though she’d have to let him close. The thought filled her with revulsion.

Still, she pulled it from its sheath, brandishing it in her dominant hand. As she expected, he laughed again. Also as she expected, he lashed out. Hands with torn nails reached for her. Lilah brought the blade up in a slicing motion, just like Seth had shown her.

_Catch the muscle in the forearm, it’ll fuck up their grip. Can’t punch if they can’t make a fist._

That’s what she did.  The move wasn’t without cost. He caught her with an upper cut to her diaphragm, knocking all the air out of her. Lilah fell back on her ass, arm around her middle as she tried to draw a breath.  Viciously, she pushed down the panic and tried to focus. It was difficult to do when h eat  was suffusing  her,  burning so hot that she looked at her clothes to see if they’d caught fire. 

It had been happening a lot of the last few days, in moments when Lilah wasn’t quite paying attention. She’d suddenly get warm. It was usually localized—her shoulder, her cheek,  ruffling through her hair. This was total body. Head to toe.  Fire burning just beneath her skin in a raging sizzle that made her muscles spasm. Despite the warmth, she shivered.

Her opponent grabbed her beneath an arm and one thigh, hoisting her up  above his head . She adjusted her grip on the blade, shoving it down into the space between shoulder and neck.  He screamed, and she had about half a second to be satisfied with it before he was throwing her through a window. In the free fall, Lilah was able to keep hold of the knife, much good that it did her. 

T his time, she landed with much more than an ‘oof’. The wind having already been knocked out of her, the sound Lilah made was something akin to a frog being stepped on. 

“I hate plate glass,” she said, when she found her voice, “I really, really hate plate glass.”

H er shoulder burned with pain, along with her hip. Lilah had to take a few breaths to see through it enough to get the layout of the room. There was an old desk that had been turned over. She started crawling towards it, wincing at the strain it put on her body. From behind her, she hear him  jump  through the window after her, still laughing.

She hadn’t gotten more than a foot or so from where she’d landed when he used the toe of his boot to roll her over. Biting her lip to keep from screaming, Lilah swung her arm in an arch, slicing through the meat of his thigh. He grunted, and smiled. Jaw clenched, she glared up at him.

He opened his mouth to speak, then paused, his head tilting to the side. Against her better judgment, Lilah followed his line of sight, eyes widening at she caught the glint of a familiar black coat. Brasa stepped forward out of what looked like literal shadows. She could feel the heat rolling off him in waves, his eyes dark with rage.

While her attacker was distracted, she scooted further away, managing to get to the desk before the guy even realized what kind of danger he was in. Brasa said nothing, telegraphed nothing, but anger. He simply approached her opponent, stood within about a foot of him, and waited.

Lilah had the distinct feeling that this guy was pretty stupid, all things considered. He was looking at what he had to know was a more powerful being, and he was smirking at him. The arm holding her knife fell across her stomach, her body relaxing. There was nothing left for her to do but settle in and watch the show.

Brasa looked the other guy up and down, and though he was standing between her and the culebra, Lilah knew he did not like what he saw. Hell, she doubted anyone would like looking at him.

Without so much as a sound, Brasa lifted an arm, shoved his thumb into the guy’s eye socket and wrenched his wrist to the side. The skull cracked beneath the skin, which separated with the ease of tearing a piece of paper down a perforation. Lilah caught his brain matter sloshing out of the cavity before she had to look away. Wet, gooey sounds were followed by the heavy thud of the body. She swallowed back the urge the retch.

A moment later, Brasa’s boots were in front of her and he was kneeling down. Lilah chanced a glance at him, offering him a small smile.

“Good timing,” she said through a clenched throat.

The pain in her arm and hip throbbed to point of distraction, making even the effort to breathe almost more trouble than it was worth. She shifted as she tried to find a comfortable position that would take some of the strain off her limbs.

His eyes narrowed, “You’re hurt.”

She shrugged, winced, and said, “Part of the job.”

A breath hissed through his teeth, “It is not. You’re too fragile to be fighting off his kind.”

Lilah’s hand tightened around the knife, “Gee, thank you.”

Scoffing, Brasa adjusted his stance, moving to pull her to standing. The motion jostled her arm and she groaned, eyes closing as she breathed deep. He stilled, eyes assessing.

“Where?”

Jaw working, Lilah replied, “Rotator cuff is torn, hip may or may not be cracked. Bruised all to hell. That about sums it up.”

With a harsh sound, Brasa ripped off his jacket and began working the button of his cuff, rolling the sleeve up. Out came the now familiar knife, and he was pushing it into his skin before she could say a word.

Gingerly, he helped her sit up a bit, “This will take care of the pain, for now.”

Hurting too much to complain, Lilah took the blood, refusing to acknowledge how good he tasted or how easily she had taken to the act. It took less convincing to make her throat swallow the blood downward, the warm, sweet taste coating her tongue. Breathing through her nose, she sucked deeper, eliciting a choked sound from him.

A few moments later, he tensed and eased her away. He stood, circling the desk, hand pushing his sleeve down. Lilah ducked back, unsure if he was going to have to take out another culebra. She held her knife at the ready, just in case.

“What is it with you and showing up unannounced?”

Seth. Also, valid question. Lilah wondered how he’d known when and where to show up.

“Who do you think gave you the information that there was a nest growing in these warehouses?”

Lilah wiped her face to make sure there would be no evidence of what they’d just been doing. And then she grabbed his coat, still laying on the floor, and stood on shaky legs.

“Hey guys,” she said with false levity, “Late again, as usual.”

To his credit, Seth didn’t look surprised, “You good?”

She nodded, “Just holding his coat while he took they guy out. Now I know what you guys feel like holding a purse in the dressing room.”

Solicitously, Lilah handed Brasa’s coat back to him. His expression when he took it was amused, but she didn’t think he was going to renege on his side of their deal. Their secret was safe, for now. To keep herself busy, she tucked the knife back into its sheath.

Richie sauntered in, cigarette in hand, “Charges are live...and we have company.”

Seth moved next to his brother, the two of them forming a wall of caustic sarcasm, “Indeed we do. Apparently, Brasa gave us the tip about the nest.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Seth drawled, “Awful nice of him.”

“It is.”

“Yes. It. Is.”

Lilah rolled her eyes, “Alright, we still have a job to do. Can we put aside our, frankly massive, egos and get it done. I’d like to get home before sunrise this time.”

Seth’s mouth pursed, but he eventually nodded. Richie was unmoved, but he followed his brother’s lead and his posture relaxed. Lilah resisted the breath of relief that threatened to blow through her nose.

“Okay,” she announced, hands flexing in front of her, “Let’s start with the two of you putting in your goddamned ear pieces.”

“You know I don’t work that way,” Seth protested.

“I literally don’t care,” she shot back, “I need to be able to communicate with you if we’re going to be successful.”

“This isn’t our first job,” Richie said, even as he pulled the ear bud from his pocket.

It wasn’t even their first job with Lilah. And, from the start, she’d insisted on better communication between herself in the eagle’s nest and the players down below. It was the only way she’d have enough information to give good directives and get everyone out alive. She was no longer amazed at their stubborn refusal.

“You want to go off half-cocked with twenty pounds of explosives wired to a detonator that only I know how to activate, sure. I’ll have our guy put in an order for a prosthetic...or two.”

“I’ll heal,” Richie said, brow lifted.

She nodded, “Your brother won’t.”

Looking somewhat censured, Richie stuffed the bud into his ear, his eyes narrow behind his glasses. Seth reluctantly did the same.

“Great. Now, I’m going to go up to the roof where my shit is set up. You both are going to get to your secondary location, and wait for my cue to pick off the stragglers after I set off the bombs. We clear?”

Neither of them said anything, their eyes looking one way or another—anywhere that wasn’t at her. She crossed her arms, waiting. It occurred to her that she should feel more pain from her shoulder with the motion. At present, it had receded to a throbbing ache. Curious.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Seth muttered, finally, “What about him?”

Brasa had been watching the entire exchange, threading his arms through the jacket, interest in his eyes. He looked at Seth pointing suspiciously at him, then to Lilah for direction.

“He’ll come with me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“He can literally see in the dark,” Lilah reasoned, “And, he’ll provide backup in case I have another...incident.”

There was no need to detail the ‘incident’ in question. Lilah wasn’t a sure thing in a fight. Too little training, too little strength. She watched Seth consider it, ignoring the smirk on Richie’s face.

With a nod, Seth turned and grabbed his brother’s shoulder, hauling him towards the door. Lilah turned her attention to Brasa and jerked her head towards the stairs.

“Roof is this way.”

He followed her up two flights of stairs, nearly silent, while Lilah made a serious attempt to keep her breathing even. Despite the cardio she regularly performed to stay in shape, stairs were stairs.

“How does the blood thing work?”

While her wounds weren’t healed by any means, the pain had lessened considerably. There was now only a dull tingle now where there had been sizzling wounds that radiated discomfort. She had almost full extension in her shoulder.

He hummed a little in question.

“The healing. You knew that the blood would help with the pain.”

They reached to roof entrance, stepping out into a humid night, a smattering of stars above. Lilah crossed over to the folding table that she’d brought with her. A laptop and the detonation device sitting next to a few odds and ends that she generally found useful to have around on any job.

“We are bondmates,” Brasa answered, as if that was all the explanation she would need.

Lilah shot him an annoyed grimace, silently telling him that she needed more information.

His brows quirked, hands sliding into the pockets of his jacket, “Blood is a conduit, Lilah. I gave you a little of my strength, that’s all.”

She blinked, “Is that why you,” she cleared her throat, the words stuck, “drink from me, too? So you get some of that strength back?”

It hadn’t escaped her notice that he had given her blood tonight, but hadn’t taken any. The deal wasn’t reciprocal, as was usual. She didn’t like feeling as if she owed him something.

Brasa shook his head, “No. My body will regenerate regardless of how much I give you.”

Her brows furrowed, “Then…?”

Eyes hooded, Brasa crowded her space. Two fingers touched beneath her chin gently. He leaned down, saying in a low voice, “Lilah, I drink from you because I want to. Because you taste so sweet that I wake up craving you. Because its better than any meal I’ve ever had.”

Her mouth went dry at the intensity of his gaze, the unwavering confidence in his voice. She had no words to respond with, couldn’t parse the feelings roiling in her belly.

A voice sounded in her ear, “We’re in position.”

The job. Seth. Richie. The explosives. Lilah shook herself and stepped away. Though her gaze remained on Brasa, she tapped her computer to wake it up.

“McNamara online,” she said as a reflex, “I don’t have a visual on the group, but recon puts them at returning in,” she looked at the clock in the lower right hand corner of the screen, “Ten minutes. You boys ready?”

“Roger that,” Richie said, laughter in his voice.

From over the line, Lilah heard a loud smack, followed by, “What? We can’t have a little fun with these things?”

With a deep sigh, Lilah muted her line and tugged on the hem of her sweatshirt. She never really expected a job to go perfectly smooth, but this one was just full of little stumbles that were adding up. Things were usually a little more organized than this, a little more polished. Since they had taken on the bar, their attention had been pulled in so many different directions that it was difficult to get everyone on the same page and focused. Lilah ran her hand over her face to calm herself.

A soft warmth bloomed at her shoulder, running along down her hand. Lilah, who hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes, opened them and glanced at the only other person around. He was standing a few feet away, observing her with interest.

Her eyes narrowed, “I knew it.”

Surprised, Brasa’s brows lifted, but he said nothing.

Turning to face him, Lilah pointed a finger, “I don’t know how, but I knew that was you.”

He looked just a little bit startled, lips parted, blinking slowly. Lilah crossed her arms, cocking a hip to the side as she waited for an explanation.

“I won’t apologize,” he said, finally, having collected himself.

Jerking her chin towards him, Lilah asked, “What would I want you to apologize for?”

A breath, “It is unusual for bondmates to be separate for long periods of time, and unheard of so soon after finding one another.”

“And?”

“And, I find that I need to check in with you to ensure you’re well.”

That was...almost sweet. It didn’t excuse the behavior, but the context was reassuring.

“You could have called me.”

“You didn’t give me your number.”

“You could have called the bar.”

In a voice laced with sarcasm, he said, “Yes, I’ll just call the establishment owned by people who are more enemies than friends and ask for you. I wonder how long it would take for your secret to get to Seth and Richie.”

Mouth thinning, Lilah felt her face heat, “I am doing my best, here.”

“As am I,” he retorted, shifting his stance, “I’d appreciate some consideration for my position.”

“Your position?”

“Yes, my position. I have people to keep fed, a business to run, and a bondmate who not only insists on living separately, but also insists on secrecy.”

“I have responsibilities, too,” Lilah asserted, throwing her hands up, “I can’t drop my entire life because of,” she gestured weakly between them, “This.”

A voice sounded in her earbud, “Uh, Lilah?”

She stabbed the mute button, “What?”

“How many were supposed to be in this nest?” Seth asked, a tinge of panic in his voice.

“Recon put it at no more than 20.”

“Well, it looks like they found some friends.”

Craning her neck to look over the edge of the roof, Lilah checked the deep black horizon, seeing nothing, “How many?”

A beat, muffled voices, “Richie says he sees about forty or fifty, but its hard to tell. They’re moving pretty fast.”

Lilah did a few calculations in her head—the size of the warehouse, the amount of C4 they’d put in there, the structure of the building as a whole.

“Plan stays the same,” she announced, “Funnel ‘em in. Blow ‘em to hell.”

“Roger that,” came Richie’s voice.

“Shut up,” Seth griped, and Lilah could just see him rolling his eyes, “We’ll hold position and pick off the ones that run.”

With a nod, Lilah pushed the mute button again. As she stared at the computer screen, another thought brushed against the forefront of her mind.

“How does it work?”

Brasa made a soft, questioning sound.

She looked up at him, “How does the...touching without touching thing work?”

He gave an elegant shrug, “Magic.”

Lilah huffed in disbelief, shaking her head and returning her attention to the screen. All detonators were active. Absently, she pressed her hand to the little box to her right. It wouldn’t open without her fingerprints, a safety precaution she may not have needed to take—she was a safety girl, through and through. A little bit of paranormal phenomenon wasn’t going to change that. Flipping the top open, she flicked the little levers over each of the detonator buttons. Red lights turned green. Active and ready to fire.

“You know that culebras exist, you’re standing next for a born and bred Xibalban, and you scoff at magic?”

Lilah eyed him briefly, “Call me a cynic, if you like. But magic can’t be the only explanation.”

“Blood is the conduit of the soul,” he murmured. Lilah heard his voice, and Richie’s voice saying it in real time, the rhythm exact in a way that told her this was something ingrained into all of them. “It is also what ties us irrevocably together.”

She didn’t like the way he said ‘irrevocably’, the finality of his tone. Before she’d been taken on by the brothers Gecko, Lilah had been pretty much a nomad. She went where the work was, stayed exclusively in hotels or slept in her car (rented, or otherwise). The concrete knowledge that this thing between her and Brasa was so solid that it could not be broken made her skittish.

Before she could stop herself, and full well knowing that she wasn’t going to get a good reaction, Lilah said, “Is this like what you had with Amaru, a blood bond?”

His jaw clenched, eyes looking up and away. He even took a tiny step back. Lilah swallowed back the urge to apologize, hands clenching on the keyboard of her laptop.

“What that was,” he began, “Is not what this is. It could never be. The queen bonded me into service, into servitude. I could not refuse a command, no matter the cost.” His voice grew tense as he continued, “I fought who she wanted, fucked who she wanted, killed at her will.”

Lifting up from where she was leaning on the little table, Lilah cast him a soft look, “That must have been frustrating.”

His expression was dark and more than a little angry, “It was.”

“But you’re not still bound to her? Or, I guess, to Kate?” She’d heard it from Kate, but Lilah needed to hear it from him.

Brasa shook his head, “No. The bond died with her.”

There was a long silence that yawned between them, Lilah trying to figure out if she’d crossed a line, and Brasa brooded nearby. It went on so long that the plan kicked into action while they were both still waiting for one another to say anything.

Sounds filtered in from across the street, people talking, doors opening. She knew they’d find the bodies of their friends where Seth and Richie had left them. She also knew that they would take time to search the area. The plan remained. Bomb the ones inside, shoot the ones running outside.

Leaning over to look off the roof, Lilah’s hand hovered over the ignition. She watched the group argue, watched them look furtively around for their enemies. And, when as many of them were gathered in the building as were likely to do so, she pressed the button. It took about three seconds for the first one to go off, the rest followed in a staccato of fire and sound that blew out the windows.

She ducked down, attempting to avoid flying debris. To her surprise, Brasa knelt down next to her, though he continued to look over the edge of the roof.

“Is this how you normally operate?”

“Not really,” she answered, “Why?”

His eyes turned to her, “Because this is the second time I’ve seen you use explosives.”

She shrugged, “We had some left over from the last job. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

Mouth tugging up on one side, Brasa dipped his chin and said, “Speaking of the last job.”

He reached back and pulled her gun from the waistband of his pants, hidden by the heavy drape of his coat. He must have picked it up in the street where she’d dropped it below, a complete circle that had started when he’d first taken her weapon in that dark basement.

Lilah took it from him, “You have a habit of taking my weapons.”

“You have a habit of losing them.”

Gunshots fired, and Lilah knew the second part of the plan had started. She stayed right where she was, her weight on one knee, looking at him. His expression had softened to amusement, and it looked like his earlier ire had passed. More gunshots, raised voices, snarls. Lilah leaned over the edge and looked down, cursing when one of the culebras caught sight of her.

“They saw me,” she breathed, thumb rolling over the safety on her pistol. “Gonna be a fight.”

Brasa smiled, “Good.”

They both stood, having no further need to hide. Lilah kept her eye on the door, but that turned out to be unnecessary. Brasa tapped her arm, flicking his fingers towards the street. Lilah peered down and groaned. They were climbing the fucking walls. She aimed, firing off a few rounds and knocking one down.

“Let them up,” Brasa ordered.

Lilah looked at him, incredulous, “You’re kidding.”

“No,” he shook his head, “Let them up. I’ll take care of them. You cover me.”

She looked at him a few more moments longer, then lifted both hands in surrender, taking several steps back from the edge and aiming. Brasa continued to look down, eyes focused. When the first of them cleared the edge, he bent at the knees, hauled them up, and threw them down head first onto the roof. Dazed, the guy didn’t react when he was rolled over and subsequently put out of his misery by a well placed stomp of Brasa’s boot, the kick going rough his rib cage straight to the other side. She winced, but held her stance.

The next guy had his arm ripped off before he could get to the lip of the roof, his head following soon after. And then two breached the roof, both of them attacking at the same time. Lilah had enough distance and focus to note how easily Brasa was fighting them off. But, when one got an arm around his shoulder and pushed him down, the other poised to use both hands to hammer punch him, Lilah squeezed the trigger.

Brasa dispatched with the guy trying to hold him down, and then turned to flash her a pleased smile, “You have good aim.”

She blinked, “I have shitty aim. I was going for his arm.”

“But you hit him in the neck. Better shot,” he countered as he approached. “Are you hurt?”

Lilah laughed, “I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine,” he said, smile holding, “No sweat.”

She eyed him, “I can see that.”

He wasn’t even out of breath. Could he even sweat? What was the physiology of a Xibalban?

Her earbud buzzed, “You good up there?”

Lilah stepped over to her computer, holstering her gun and tapping the mute button, “I’m good. You get them all?”

“No,” Richie said with a growl, “Couple got away.”

Hissing through her teeth, Lilah shook her head, “Well, maybe we scared them enough that they won’t come back.”

“Or,” Seth cut in, and she could hear muffled sounds behind his voice, “We just taught them how to be more careful.”

Shutting down her computer and pulling her bag out from underneath the table, Lilah gave a deep sigh, “Doesn’t matter. We’re done, here. At least for tonight.”

Brasa observed her while she packed up, his gaze a physical weight on the back of her neck. Uncomfortable with the silence, Lilah asked the question that had been burning at the back of her brain since the night she’d met him.

“How come you don’t bite me? Do Xibalbans not bite?”

A low chuckle rumbled, “We bite.”

She dropped the bag gently on the ground and tipped the table over to fold its legs underneath and the tabletop in half so that it would fit in her carrying case. When he didn’t elaborate, she rolled her wrist at him, an unspoken gesture for more.

“What do you know about venom?”

She paused, an ache forming behind her eyes. He’d asked her a similar question when he’d explained the bond between them. She clocked it for what it was, a stalling technique.

“Just pretend that I don’t know shit about anything, okay?” She snapped, “Pretend I’ve been living under a rock.”

His brows drew together in confusion, but he continued nonetheless, “Behind my fangs are two glands that secrete a venom that is meant to keep my,” he paused, “donor...pliable.”

Hauling both bags over her shoulder, Lilah asked, “Pliable?”

He hummed in confirmation, “Less fighting means a cleaner bite.”

“Is it toxic?”

Brasa shook his head, “Not really. My experience is that the venom induces pleasurable feelings, though the effects are different for everyone.”

He followed her to the stairs, angling around her to get the door.

Lilah gave him a grateful nod, “And you don’t want to expose me to the venom?”

With the load she was carrying, Lilah didn’t dare turn her head to look at him, but she was comforted by the sound in the negative that reached her ears.

“I don’t want your perception of me to be colored by...the effects.”

At the landing, Lilah turned and smiled wryly at him, “You think I’ll like you more if you get me high.”

The slight pause in his step told her that she’d guessed right. Her smile widened, and she turned to make her way outside.

“The consideration is appreciated,” she called back to him as she cleared the door.

“Thank you,” he responded, following her out.

They watched Seth and Richie approached, rifles over their shoulders. Lilah moved to the alley, the trunk popping from a distance. She threw both bags in it and closed the lid, heading back to the men who were staring each other down not far away. Lilah noticed that both Seth and Richie were still holding their rifles close to their bodies.

“Okay,” she said loudly, “I think that’s a wrap, don’t you?”

Seth cut a look at her that was more annoyed than angry, “I agree.” Then, to Brasa, “Thanks for coming to the party. How about, next time, you RSVP first.”

Brasa smirked, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lilah rolled her eyes and reached over to pull Seth by the arm, “Let’s go. Like I said, I want to be home before the sun comes up.” Over her shoulder, she said, “Thanks for the assist.”

Brasa gave her a courteous nod. Lilah congratulated herself that she didn’t look back, even when they were tearing out into the desert towards home. They did, in fact, get there before sunrise.


	5. Chapter 5

Lilah sat at a conference table, hands at her temples, groaning. The meeting was going nowhere. There had been so much goddamned bickering in the last hour that Lilah was tempted just to get up and walk out to see if they would even notice. The fucking testosterone in this room was thick enough to choke her.

They’d been arguing on and off for hours, save for a few breaks that Lilah had mandated when the urge to either bludgeon them to death or to pee arose. Every little thing had to be discussed, debated, twisted every which way. Nothing was simple, especially not when it came to the territory assigned to each side.

“Alright!” She yelled, finally having had enough. “Let’s just go over this again.”

Standing, Lilah leaned over the map. The surface was covered by solid, clear plastic, onto which they were outlining territories with dry erase markers. The current argument centered around the delineation of land around a fertile riverbed.

“Okay,” she grunted, “We aren’t planting crops, we’re just trying to figure out what land we’re going to be responsible for.” She put her hand over the area on the map, giving her friend a meaningful look, “We don’t need it, Seth.”

Making a derisive sound, Seth held up his hand, “Hold your horses. This river cuts through our liquor supply chain. We need access to the highway over there.”

Brasa shrugged, having leaned back from the table, “No one is saying you can’t import your liquor. Your horses will be safe.”

Lilah felt her eyes roll, couldn’t keep the sigh from escaping her lips, “He wasn’t talking about literal horses.”

Acting as if he hadn’t heard her, Seth barreled forward, “Yeah, but let’s say things get tense between us. You could cut off our supply just like that.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. “No, we’re going to extend out past the river and over the road.”

“An extra fifty miles,” Brasa drawled, “For an uninterrupted supply chain.”

“Correct,” Seth answered, a smug little smirk on his mouth.

As he eyed Seth, Lilah could feel the barest brush of warmth across her hands. Reflexively, she drew them back, closer to the safety of her body. The heat dissipated as Brasa stood, leaning his weight into his palms as he braced them on the table.

Like the rest of him, Brasa’s hands were large, the fingers spreading wide over the wood. Lilah noted how the gloves he was wearing stretched tight across the backs of them. She wondered, not for the first time, why he wore them.

“Then, I want the desert land here,” he pointed to a swath of empty land, “And here.”

Seth considered it before giving a nod. Lilah marked it out on the map with the coordinated colors she’d chosen before the meeting began.

“Wait,” Seth said, and Lilah’s jaw clenched, “What would you want with a couple hundred square miles of empty land?”

Brasa lifted a brow, “Are we holding more horses?”

“Forget the horses,” Seth bit out with a wave of his hand, “No one willingly chooses to own land like this.”

“Is that so?”

Lilah did not like the way he said that. A question wrapped around a veiled barb, wrapped in ridicule. She glanced at Seth to see if he caught the undertones in the words. He hadn’t. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved.

“There is a group of my people who have made camp there,” Brasa explained lightly.

Seth looked unmoved, “You don’t want us going out there and doing population control.”

Lip curling, Brasa replied, “Is that what you call what you were doing? Looked a lot like chaos to me.”

Without blinking, Seth shot back, “Well, its not our main bag, alright? This shit is new to us, since _your people_ came along and _infected_ my brother.”

A nd, there they were, talking in circles around  the thing that made negotiating such an arduous task. Seth would never forgive Brasa for the hell he’d put them through, for the uncrossable gulf that now existed between him and his brother. Fighting with Richie about it only made things worse, and Seth was resorting to striking out at the only other available target.

“This isn’t the time for this,” Lilah edged, fingers tightening on the marker.

“When is the time?” Seth nearly yelled, “We started out killing them and now we’re marking out territories and writing fucking policies and procedures together.”

L ilah drew in a calming breath, “This is business, Seth.”

She’d explained it to him several times over. They needed the cooperation of Brasa and his people. There were just too many factions, too many rogue culebras to hunt down all by themselves. It would take scouring the land every day for years to make that happen. Brasa had already assured them that anyone getting blood at their sites was vetted intensely. Anyone who broke the primary rule and killed humans without regard for the safety of the group was eliminated.

Seth looked at her with ire, “Fuck business.”

“Yes,” Lilah countered with a sneer, “Fuck business. Fuck ending a war. Fuck peace.” She sat back in her chair with a huff, “You want to keep fighting forever? Guess what? You don’t have forever. He does.” She pointed at Brasa, “He has all the time in the world to wait you out, and he’s offering a solution—now, not later.”

Seth went quiet, jaw working. His fingers drummed on the table, eyes cutting.

Lilah saw the crack in his resolve and kept talking, “ This sucks. It all sucks. Ironing out details fucking sucks.” She tapped her fingers on the map, “But these details are going to save lives.  Possibly yours and mine.  Let’s just get this done so we can get back to shit we used to do, the fun shit. ”

There was a heaviness in the air as she trailed off, her expression urging Seth for some sort of compromise. She was being honest when she said she wanted to get back to what she was good at. Lilah had been itching for a job for months, had actually stooped low enough to snag a pair of sunglasses at the gas station just to satisfy the restlessness in her hands. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to end out figuring out who the richest person in the country was and rob them blind.

Brasa spoke, his voice piqued with interest, “What did you do before...population control?”

Seth cut a look at him that was both suspicious and angry, “We’re thieves. I run point, Richie is the box man, Lilah monitors with tech.”

“That is fortunate,” Brasa said as he sat, with a little smile that was far too easy for Lilah’s taste, “I happen to need a few items stolen for me.”

Lilah leaned her head on her head, motioning for him to continue. She was intrigued by the idea that he would be interested in contracting with them. A job was a tasty idea, at the moment, and found that she didn’t much care that it would be Brasa that would be directing them.

“As you might be aware, relics are often stolen from indigenous people and either put on display in a museum or kept in a private collection. I’d like some of those relics back.”

L ilah’s brows lifted. That was certainly not what she had expected him to say. The idea had some merit, though. Lilah’s favorite jobs were museums.  So many pretty things that definitely needed a new home. 

Seth considered it, “We’re not a cheap crew.”

True.

Nodding, Brasa simply said, “I have money.”

Definitely true. Every inch of Brasa’s office and the bar adjacent screamed money at her in an understated way. As old as he was, there was no denying that he likely had a cache of assets squirreled away.

Lilah looked back and forth between them, already calculating cost, labor, and expenses. Depending on what he wanted, she could potentially negotiate a hefty profit. And, if there happened to be something else in the museum that caught her fancy—bonus.

“Say we do this job,” Seth began, slouching in his seat, “And you pay us—and, we iron out all these details,” he gestured to the map. “Is that going to be it?”

“It?”

“Yeah. Or, are we going to have a dual relationship, here. Both contractor and partner.”

Lilah was actually a little impressed that Seth not only knew how dual relationships worked, but also applied it to their unique situation. She turned her attention to Brasa, curious to hear his response.

“I can contract others, if you like. But, I like to work with people I know, people that I...trust to have a stake in things going well for them.”

Logical. Practical. Efficient. Lilah was quickly learning how skilled Brasa could be when he wanted something done. He might want whatever these relics were back in his possession, but she wasn’t stupid enough to dismiss the fact that he was creating yet another tie between them, anchoring her nearby with every task they agreed to take on. It wasn’t possible to deny his motivations any longer. Denial wouldn’t do her any good. She was undecided on how she felt about it.

Seth remained silent, watching, waiting. Lilah was holding her breath.

Brasa’s eyes narrowed, “I will give you the river, and the connecting highway from here,” he pointed, “to here. In lieu of payment, of course. You make take your horses wherever you like within that boundary.”

Mildly offended, Lilah cut in, “In lieu of payment, but you will cover expenses. Air fare, hotel stays, food, and equipment.”

His attention, when it turned to her, was keen. Though his expression did not change, there was a twinkle of laughter in his eyes, possibly pride, as well, “Done.”

“What if,” Seth began, “We took this deal, and our horses, and added this area, too.”

He pointed to the desert Brasa had originally bargained for. It was surrounded by enemy territory, across the river they’d just gained, with no inherent resources. Lilah glared at him, knowing he was needling his opponent. The man just couldn’t help it, consequences be damned.

“Well,” Brasa responded levelly, “I’d say that you might have your horses, but you’d be isolated, alone, and on the wrong side of the river.”

Seth conceded the point with a nod of his head, “Not a fan of sand, anyways. Unless its a beach. Beaches, I can do.”

Unmoved by the sentiment, Brasa simply replied, “I will keep the desert.”

Lilah blinked slowly, and when Seth made no move to argue, she asked “So its settled, then?”

Both of them indicated in the positive, with Seth saying, “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

“One thing?” Lilah commented, though she didn’t expect him to respond. He’d started on a tangent, and getting him back on track would be difficult. Better to let him roll through his thought process.

“You’ve got a whole group of culebras that you’re feeding, right?”

Brasa nodded, though his expression had shuttered.

“How are you doing that?”

A valid question that she had figured out not longer after these meetings had started. Lilah cut in, trying to head off any insult he might inadvertently blurt out, “He’s having it shipped in.”

“From where?” Seth asked, hands gesturing widely. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in kind of a food desert, here. Literally and figuratively.”

Without an answer to his question, Lilah looked to Brasa, brows lifted. She was curious enough about his process to let the question stand.

Cocking his head to the side, Brasa licked his lips, “I run a rather complex medical supplies company. We ship all over the country. Part of that business is blood donation.”

Seth’s mouth thinned, “You’re stealing blood.”

Brasa huffed, “We transport most of it to where it needs to go. Call it a finder’s fee.”

“What about the sick people who need it?”

Where was all this compassion coming from? Lilah wondered. Although far from heartless, Seth didn’t usually care this much about the people he ripped off. Why should this be any different?

“Would you rather we feed on the humans in the area?” Brasa’s voice was low, dangerous. Lilah could feel the offense, as if it were her own.

“No.”

“Alright, then.”

Sensing that the conversation had come to an impass, Lilah gathered up her paperwork, “I’m going to get this all formatted and polished for both of your signatures. Shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

“Great,” Seth muttered as he rose, “Let’s get out of here.”

***

Later, when her eyes started crossing from staring at the computer too long, Lilah shut down her laptop and sat it on her nightstand. Rubbing at her face, she yawned and settled against the headboard.  Furtively, she glanced to the side, her hand already reaching for the candle she’d tucked away. After checking that the door was closed (despite having closed and locked it a few hours before), Lilah lifted the lid and inhaled deeply. 

C offee. Caramel. 

A little too quickly, Lilah replaced the lid and set it back in its little hideaway.  Embarrassed, she crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling. Lilah was feeling things she hadn’t really ever felt, not since she’d been in high school. And, even then, it was never this intense.  She managed to get through their meetings solely because there was always something else to focus on. Every one on one interaction with him left her feeling frazzled and lightheaded. She’d stolen rare artifacts with less trouble.

In this business, Lilah had what most would call a late start. She’d had a normal childhood, had gone through high school and done the work thing for a bit. Lilah had even sat in a cubicle, bored out of her mind. It wasn’t until she’d met a chop shop owner named Chewie that she’d been introduced to theft. First, cars, then she’d set her eyes on higher things—art, diamonds, one time she managed to steal a yacht.

It had been a steady rotation of teams that were well-established in their own right, but never did more than a few jobs together before they split to keep the heat down.  Lilah had spent almost a decade running in those circles before she’d run into Seth at a dive bar south of the border. He’d hit on her, laughed when she’d knocked him off his barstool, and offered her a job. 

And, here she sat. Hip deep in a relationship she didn’t understand  and  brokering a deal between her friends and the people they’d taught her to fear.  Sneering at the course of her own thoughts, Lilah pushed her feet under the covers and  turned off the light. It took longer than she wanted to get to sleep.

***

O h,  _fuck_ , the bed was comfortable. Lilah turned over, burying her nose in the pillow and kicking out her legs. With a sigh, she settled back into the mattress that she was pretty sure was  more expensive than her car .  So comfortable was she that Lilah could be forgiven for taking a little longer than normal to become aware of another body in the bed with her.

S he took a few second s to assess and decide on what she was going to do, which was pretty much nothing. Eyes opening, she waited for them to adjust to the warm light emanating from the lamp sitting on the nightstand.  Cast in shadow, Lilah recognized the slop e of Brasa’s profile. His eyes were closed, but she couldn’t tell if he was sleeping.

H er fingers curled with the urge to reach out and touch, her brain a little foggy from sleep.  Lips parting, she breathed, lids falling to half mast Lilah let it roll over her tongue.  She had to clench her jaw to stifle a pleased moan.

L ashes fluttering, Brasa opened his eyes, his head rolling to the side on the pillow.  He looked her over calmly, unsurprised that she’d somehow ended up in his bed. Lilah, however, had questions.

“Is this real?”

His mouth quirked, “Does it have to be?”

She started to answer, and then stopped. Did it have to be?  Lilah wasn’t sure which she preferred.  When they were together, she felt excited and eager,  even when she was outwardly annoyed . When they were apart, she struggled to reconcile the two versions of him that she knew to be true. With barely a  thought, he’d eviscerated his opponents, hands tearing them into literal pieces. And then there was the way he was looking at her right now—all softness, all quiet affection. 

L ilah’s silence continued, the space between them spreading thin with her indecision.  Brasa shifted slowly to his side, lifting up onto his elbow so that he was looking down at her. His body was cut in half by lamplight, eyes too bright to be merely natural reflection. 

Lilah’s skin drew up tight around the curves of her body as she worked to keep her gaze on his.  Every inch of her seemed to be viscerally aware of him, responding to the smallest movement.  Her nerves sizzled with his nearness. 

He tilted his head to the side, eyes tracing the contours of her cheekbones, her neck, and shoulders. Lilah swallowed, disconcerted by the scrutiny, but unable to think of any way to break it. He studied her as if he’d never look at her again, memorizing details with tender care.

Finally, when she couldn’t take the silence anymore, she said, “How am I here?”

Brasa lifted a shoulder, “We had so little time together last night. Perhaps we needed more.”

She didn’t know what to do with that. Next question, then.

“You sleep during the day.”

Not really a question, more of a statement, but she waited for his answer nonetheless.

“Sometimes,” he replied, taking her change in subject in stride, “I need less sleep than most.”

“Why?”

He smiled, “I am very old. We need to sleep less, to feed less, as we age.”

Lilah had heard a little about this from Richie, who’d lamented that it took so long to build up a tolerance to going long periods without feeding. And, she knew Richie only slept a few hours a night. She wondered just how often Brasa would need to sleep, given how much older he was. Lilah was no longer surprised at his efficiency with getting his projects together. If she could miss a few meals or miss a few night’s sleep every once in a while, she could get a hell of a lot done.

“That’s a nice perk,” she commented lightly, “When I go too long without eating, I get grumpy.”

Nodding, Brasa reached out and traced the pad of a finger over her shoulder and down her arm to her wrist, “I will keep this in mind and endeavor to keep you well fed.”

Would she do the same? He hadn’t mentioned that she had taken his blood without giving any in return. Whenever Lilah thought about it too deeply, she always came back to the same line of thought—his bite. She had tried to do a little covert research about the venom, but only found a few vague references to ‘donors’ seeking it out. Venom, it seemed, could be a popular drug in certain circles.

“I’m sorry that we left so quickly,” Lilah murmured rolling her wrist to place her hand over his, “I know that I didn’t...fulfill my end of our agreement.”

Twice. Two interactions in a row, she hadn’t. He hadn’t brought it up, but the disparity between what she’d promised and what she’d done nagged at her. She didn’t like to be made a liar.

Brasa’s brows lifted, “Are you afraid I’ll tell them?”

“No,” she replied quickly, “I just don’t want you to think I’m avoiding it.”

He smiled flirtatiously, “Are you offering now?”

Eyes widening, Lilah’s mouth parted, voice silent  as her brain stumbled over forming a reply, “This is a dream. Is—is that even possible?”

H e laughed,  a real laugh . It made his face, so predisposed to severity, brighten in such a way that he fairly glowed in the dim light. Lilah felt her breath catch in the back of her throat,  struck by just how goddamned pretty he was to look at.

“I don’t know,” he breathed, when he was able, “Would you like to try?”

T he word ‘okay’ was out of her mouth before Lilah could stop it, her eyes wide, her heart beating hard. Brasa’s smile faded, his eyes focusing on her, the pupils bleeding out into the whites until there was nothing but blackness looking down at her. She drew in a shuddering breath, her fingers curling over his. 

Sliding closer to her, Brasa cupped her jaw, tilting  it  back just a little. He glanced at her face again, checking for her consent. She gave the smallest nod, licking her lips. The motion drew his eyes to  her mouth ,  his body growing hot against her .  He leaned down, but instead of hovering over the thin skin of her neck, he moved to the side. The realization that he intended to kiss her came to Lilah in a slow, honeyed wave. 

“Yes?” He asked, his breath fanning over her mouth.

“Yes.”

I t was so, so slow, this kiss. Light pressure that grew heavier in the smallest increments. Lilah gripped his bicep, trying to ground herself as every nerve in her body screamed to life, reaching out desperately to get more stimulation.  He drew back, changed the angle, and kissed her again—deeper, hungrier,  tongue running along her bottom lip. 

S he was too hot, her skin seared by the heat emanating from him. Sweat rose and pooled in the hollows of her arms, beneath her breasts, the crease between her hip and thigh. She heard herself moan, felt her muscles relax as he rolled her beneath him. Brasa pulled away, nosing along her jaw and down to her neck. Lilah surprised herself when her lifted her chin, giving him more access. 

The sharp press of his teeth snapped her awake. She sat up, breathing as if she’d been sprinting.  Her entire body was shaking, her sheets  damp with sweat. 

“Well,” she croaked, “That’s new.”


	6. Chapter 6

Lilah stared at the picture in front of her, memorizing the details of the staff. It was made of wood, intricately carved, and kept in a glass case. The stand it sat upon was very likely pressurized, any change in weight would set off the alarm. There were no heat sensors in the display room, but there were motion sensors and a steady rotation of guards. Not super tricky, but not child’s play.

“Do you have blueprints of the building?” she asked, eyes looking to Brasa.

She’d been careful in how she looked at him for the entire meeting, not wanting to give away how she could still feel his lips ghosting across her skin. Though she hadn’t shared any more dreams with him, Lilah couldn’t keep her mind from going over how nice it felt to have his weight on her, how his hands (which she later realized were gloveless) felt as they coasted over her body.

“I do,” he replied, gesturing to Javier.

They were sitting in the vast room that served as Brasa’s office. Seth was standing next to the desk, going over the staffing schedule. Like most businesses, they had set shifts. Also like most businesses, their turnover rate was fairly high—the pay was definitely not enough to hold on to the more experienced or more talented staff. This, of course, was all good for them.

Richie was sprawled in the chair next to her, “We got any of those explosives left?”

Lilah glanced at him, “Why? You want to blow a hold in the floor, drop the staff and its stand through to the bottom, and haul ass out through the sewer system?”

He smiled, lifting a shoulder, as if she’d perfectly described his thoughts. She took the blueprints from Javier and checked them over to see if they could make that work.

“As fun as that would be,” Lilah said, “and it would be pretty fun, the building doesn’t have an underground tunnel, sewer or otherwise. The foundation is too thick for that.”

“Well, damn,” Richie drawled, “Guess we’ll have to go with the old smash and grab.”

That wasn’t a bad idea, but Lilah hated to bring that kind of attention to them. It would not only set off the alarm, but the police station was less than three blocks away. Not a lot of time for their getaway. Better to do this nice and clean.

“Again, totally a fun idea, but not a smart one.”

Seth stood up, rubbing at the back of his neck, “Looks like we got about a half hour rotation for security. Plenty of time.”

It _was_ plenty of time. There was no safe to crack, just a series of security measures to override. In some ways, that was more tricky. Lilah stared at the blueprints, her brain running over options.

“We’ll need a key card,” Richie prompted, sitting up and resting his forearms on his knees, “If we can get that, and the six digit passcode, we should be able to disable the system with no problem.”

She cut a look at him, “You have any ideas about how we can go about getting the card and code?”

He laughed, “Yeah.”

“Care to share with the class?”

“Knock out a guard, take the key card,” he explained, as if it were the easiest thing in the world, “There’s only one on-site during the evening hours.”

Not the worst plan. To be fair, that was usually how their plans started out. Still, it left something to be desired.

“And the code?” She prompted lightly, setting the blueprints down on the desk in front of her.

“Oh, we’d threaten him first. Get the code that way.”

She blinked, “And if he’s lying.”

He paused, “Alright, we try the code first, then knock them out.”

Too messy.

Lilah gathered the photos she’d discarded in her lap and set them on the desk by the blueprints, “Maybe we get the code a couple days before, then wait until the gap in the rotation, break in, take the staff, and walk out.”

Richie smiled wide, “And, how do we get the code beforehand?”

That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? They were lucky the codes didn’t roll over randomly—just one code assigned to each guard and used whenever they were on shift. Low maintenance, but high risk for this kind of location.

Seth crossed his arms, “Richie, you still got a couple of those tiny cameras laying around?”

Richie had bought about a hundred of these little cameras for ‘security purposes’, putting them around the bar. The move had paid off when they caught one of the bartenders taking some extra cash from the till at the end of shift. He’d never let Seth forget about it.

“Yeah, I got a few.”

“Alright,” Seth said as he braced his hands on the desk, “Lilah, you’ll going in and plant one of them in the line of sight of the keypad. We’ll monitor until we get the passcodes.”

Lilah observed him with a wry smile, “Look at you, making your way into the future.”

He rolled his eyes, but smiled, “Don’t get used to it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied dryly, her smile holding. It would take an act of God to get Seth to relinquish his way of doing things. Despite having an actual sun god in the room, Lilah was doubtful that she could get him to budge.

She rolled up the blueprints and handed them back to Javier with a nod of gratitude. He smiled wide at her, the expression self-satisfied. From across the desk, Brasa stood a little too quickly, a little growl cut off at the back of this throat.

“It seems you have this all in hand,” he said, a little too formally. “Lilah, I have the response to your edits in my personal library. If you’ll follow me.”

He turned and walked off towards a wall on the far side, hands tapping out a series of numbers on a pad situated on the wall. The smooth surface clicked open, and he pulled on it to reveal a hidden doorway. Impatiently, he looked back at her, a little nod indicating that she should hurry up.

With a click of her tongue, Lilah made her way towards him, moving through the doorway and into an incredibly dark hall. When Brasa pulled the door shut behind them, there was nothing to guide her way. Lilah felt her lungs draw in a shaky breath as she struggled to see. He stepped up and around her, taking her hand.

Lilah didn’t like the way she gripped the leather, didn’t like that she couldn’t see what was ahead. Still, she followed him until he slowed, the sound of keys being entered into a pad signaling that they’d come upon their destination.

When the door opened, he pulled her into a room that was lit with warm amber light. She blinked, her eyes adjusting. She knew this room. She knew the color of the walls, the texture of the ceiling, the feeling of the bed that dominated the space.

Already knowing the answer to the question, she asked, “Whose room is this?”

“Mine,” he replied, already moving to the far side and through an open door.

Lilah followed, feeling out of place. Awkwardly, she stood in the doorway and looked around the smaller, cozier room. Cast in dark wood and soft, sumptuous fabrics, the room was lined entirely with bookcases—floor to ceiling—that were absolutely stuffed with books.

Curious, she moved along the shelves nearest to her, hand skimming the tomes. There were languages she recognized and many that she didn’t. Her hands itched to pull them from the stacks and thumb through them. She wondered how long he had been collecting books, and how many of them filled this relatively small space.

At the center of the room was an overstuffed couch that sat opposite a desk with a computer and files scattered over it. Brasa was gathering paper and slipping it into one such folder, shoulders tense.

Lilah regarded him carefully, “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t spare her a look, tossing the file down and reaching for another, “I’m fine.”

“Yuh huh,” she said, “Seriously, what’s up with you? Five minutes ago, you were fine. Now, you’re...abusing office supplies.”

His expression, when he looked up at her, was incredulous, “What?”

“You’re throwing around files like they did something to you,” she couldn’t keep the laugh out of her voice.

His face hardened, and she could see the irises of her his eyes flicker. Lilah crossed her arms, waited. She’d found that if she waited a moment, he’d usually answer her, no matter the question. This seemed a good time to test that theory.

When her, admittedly small, patience ran out, she asked, “You going to tell me, or are you going to pout about it?”

“I’m not pouting,” he shot back, standing to his full height and circling the desk slowly.

She watched him warily, noting how tightly he was wound. He looked ready to lash out, and she was definitely in the line of fire. Irritated by his behavior, she shifted a little on her feet, unable to let it go.

“Well,” Lilah bit out, “You sure as shit aren’t talking about it.”

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Brasa gave a humorless laugh, “You are impossible.”

She sneered, “That’s the second time you’ve told me that. It wasn’t true before, its not true now.”

His glance skittered away, “I realize that this is new for you, but you are walking a thin line.”

Lilah repeated the last three words, her eyes narrowed in confusion, “What the fuck does that mean?”

When his eyes found hers again, there was anger there, and not a little betrayal, “Flirting with other males in front of me is not going to get the response you want.”

She was...still confused. After a few more seconds, she was pissed off. Lilah took a step towards him, her jaw clenched.

“Who the fuck was—you know what? No, that’s not the point. The point is that you think I’m the kind of person who would do something like that to get a rise out of you.” She took a step back, “No, I’m not the asshole, here. You are.” And then, “You can email me the edits, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, Lilah walked as calmly (and quickly) as she could through his bedroom and out into the hall. In the dark, she cursed lowly and felt her way along until she reached the door, grateful that it was locked from this side and she didn’t have to wait for Brasa to key in the code.

Before she moved back into the office proper, Lilah took a deep breath and schooled her features. Her emotions were oscillating wildly from shock, to incredulity, to anger that burned hot in her belly. She hadn’t done a single thing wrong, and to be accused of...she didn’t even know what, made her want to blow something up. Damn shame that she’d already used all the explosives. Lilah took another calming breath.

With a well placed lie, she managed to get through the next few minutes of packing up. She was careful to keep conversation going on the way home, even stayed at the bar for a drink. Lilah gave nothing away as she quietly seethed. It wouldn’t do any good to vent this kind of frustration—not that she could really tell anyone. Her personal relationship with Brasa was still secret, and she wasn’t going to upset the delicate balance that she’d set up with a childish outburst—unlike _some people._

Lilah spent the evening vowing to hold this grudge as long as she could stand it, her fury remaining at a low simmer in her belly. When her phone vibrated in her pocket, she opened a text message from an unknown sender asking her to talk. She deleted it, focusing on the job she’d been contracted to perform.

Three days later, she was sitting in a van parked a block or so away from the museum, checking the comms.

“Everyone hear me?”

Seth’s voice sounded, “We can hear you. Now, shut up for a minute while I get this lock open.”

They had to do things the old fashioned away for the outer locks on the back door, no key code security measures. Lilah had rolled her eyes at the excited look on Seth’s face as he threw down his lock picks onto the table where they’d rolled out the blueprints Javier had loaned them.

From over the line, she heard Seth make an approving grunt, the sound of the door opening a moment after.

“We’re through the first set of doors.”

Lilah nodded, eyes on the computer in her lap, “Guard is starting his rotation. He’s just left the office.”

“Ten minutes for a full round,” Richie murmured, “I’ve clocked it.”

Again, she nodded, “I started the timer. Get in the office, cut the security feed.”

The museum had upgraded to digital a while back, but their servers only uploaded once an hour. She checked the clock. They had three minutes until upload. She watched Seth and Richie approach the office and bypass it for the server room. Two minutes. They were moving leisurely, almost sauntering through the hall. Wasting time.

“Pick up the pace,” she said.

“We’re on it, princess,” Seth retorted.

“Then get going” Lilah shot back in sing-song. “You’re down to a minute, fifteen seconds.”

On the screen, they found the server, and slipped the USB she’d made for them into the drive. Thirty seconds left. Lilah switched screens, watching the little yellow bar make its way from left to right. Fifteen seconds. The bar went green and she smiled.

“Server’s crashing,” she confirmed lowly. “Get out of there.”

With a salute to a camera that wasn’t recording, Seth grabbed Richie from where he was looking at the electronics, hauling him towards the next checkpoint. They would have to wait until the guard crossed back to the office, turn off the motion sensors, and get the staff out of the case.

That was the tricky part. The case was bolted down to its stand, and they couldn’t risk the sound of a drill alerting the guard. They’d have to manually unscrew the case, hold down the weight sensor, lift the staff, replace it with the dummy weight, close the case, and get back to the checkpoint before the guard made their next round. Thirty minutes was a long time, but there was a lot to do.

“Guard’s coming,” Lilah warned.

They ducked behind a corner as the guard passed, Richie watching him discreetly. When it was safe, they circled around to the next room where the staff was on exhibit. Motion sensors disabled. On to the case.

Lilah appreciated how efficient they were, when they were focused. Moving as a single unit, they worked their way around the case, wrenches in hand, making quick work of it. Once they had it off, Seth reached into the bag they’d brought with them and held up the staff they’d created as a temporary replacement.

Richie had spent a few hours putting it together, and from a distance it looked pretty good. It would, at least, buy them enough time to get away and make the two hour flight back to Mexico. With any luck, it would be a few days before they figured it out. Lilah didn’t count on it. She’d booked a flight within an hour of when they were going to finish the job. No bags to check. Straight through security and onto the plane.

Lilah watched as Richie slipped a knife over the pressure sensor, his other hand nimbly plucking the staff from the stand. Seth carefully set the replica into place, both men holding very still as Richie pulled the knife free. After a second or two where both looked to be holding their breath, Richie stuffed the staff into the bag as Seth replaced the case. Screws ratcheted back into place, motion sensors reactivated.

“Don’t forget the camera,” Lilah prompted, laughing when Seth scoffed and spun on his heel, snagging the device and pocketing it on the way down the hall.

“Guard’s on his round,” she whispered, “Get to the hallway. Now.”

Moving quickly, Seth rounded the corner, barely clearing it before the guard stepped into the room. They hustled back the way they came and out into the alley, locking the door behind them. Lilah closed down the computer and threw it in the backseat of the van, turning over the ignition. A few minutes later, the sliding door was opened and both men jumped inside. The van was already moving before they got the door closed again.

“Without a hitch,” Richie drawled as he relaxed in his seat.

Seth smiled at his brother, “That was good work.”

“We’re not done yet,” Lilah called back, “Still have to get it across the border.”

“Ah,” Seth sighed, “That’s the beauty of it. The postal system is going to do all the hard work for us.”

Reaching back, he pulled the prepped box from the third row of seats. He snapped at Richie, who handed him the bag. Into the box went the staff, with a little bubble wrap for protection. A little packing tape, and it was all sealed up and ready to go.

Lilah pulled off to the side and into the parking lot of the mail center, watching as Seth hopped out of the van and dropped the package into the chute. It would be at the bar within a few days. Easy peasy.

She slept on the plane, an alarm set for sunrise. Since she’d last seen him, Lilah had refused to sleep during the day, and only for a few hours at a time. It made her irritable and a little foggy, but she didn’t want to see him. Whenever she thought about their last interaction, Lilah got angry all over again. She’d take a little hit to her functioning to have their next meeting be completely on her terms.

Lilah had gone over the conversation a hundred times, wondering how he’d gotten the impression that she’d been trying to goad him by flirting with—she actually couldn’t figure out which male he’d been concerned about. Best she could figure, he was working off an old framework, the power imbalance between himself and his queen. That wasn’t going to fly, not with her. She had too much going on to deal with a partner (was he even her partner?) who’d go off half-cocked at the slightest feeling of jealousy. No. Lilah had other shit to deal with.

It was with regret that she knew she would have to go and speak with him. Lilah couldn’t avoid him forever—she snorted at the thought—things would have to be cleared up eventually. Besides, she needed to get back to her sleep schedule if she was going to be of any use to anyone. Better to rip this metaphorical Band-Aid off quickly, and soon.

Arguing that she had to deliver the next draft of the treaty, Lilah stashed the staff in the back seat of her car and headed out into the dying sun. The two hour drive gave her enough time to work out what she was going to say. First, she was going to demand an apology. Lilah deserved that much. Then, she was going to discuss boundaries for the future. That seemed like the adult thing to do. Lilah congratulated her self at how mature the plan sounded in her head. Reality, however, wasn’t quite so easy.

As she pulled into the parking lot, Lilah debated leaving the staff in the elevator to be found by whoever might be walking by and hauling ass back to the bar. That, unfortunately, would put the covering of their expenses (for which she had receipts) at risk. She’d never live it down if she came back empty handed. So, into the elevator she went.

In the carriage, Lilah felt warmth crawl up her side. She sneered to the ceiling, “Stop it.”

It stopped.

Steeling herself, Lilah stepped into the red light and headed for the bar. Brasa already knew she was here, so all she had to do was sit and wait for him to come to her. She pushed up onto a bar stool and set leaned the staff next to her legs. When the bartender approached, she ordered a bourbon, watching him pour the shot. When she tried to pay, he waved her off, telling her it was on the house.

Suspicious, she pocketed the cash and picked up the glass, sniffing. Nothing smelled off with it, so she took the tiniest sip. Tasted fine. She set it down. Suspicious. Lilah very rarely got free drinks, her looks too severe, her manner too cold. To be fair, that was her preference most of the time. Lilah didn’t have the energy or the patience to fend off advances from drunken men.

A shadow appeared beside her, but it was too cold to be the person she was waiting for. Lilah looked up, unsmiling.

“Can I help you?”

The man flashed his teeth, “I’m Benny.”

Lilah continued to look at him, unamused.

Uninvited, he sat, leaning an arm on the bar top, “You’re not what I expected.”

She debated answering him, a half dozen cutting remarks flying through her mind. In the end, she settled for turning her attention to her drink and ignoring him. Best course of action, really. Lilah needed to save all her quips for the person she was actually mad at.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

At this Lilah rolled her eyes, fixing the guy with a look that said, ‘what the fuck do you think?’

His expression grew still, and she could see the glint of his game face, though he worked to control it. He growled, his hand grasping her arm above the elbow. The grip was painful, and Lilah only just managed to keep her expression cool as she felt the very real danger he presented to her. She was armed, both gun and knife, but she was technically in enemy territory. Starting a fight with one might mean starting a fight with all. Her eyes scanned the room, too many possible enemies nearby.

She’d have to talk her way out.

Heat pushed at her back.

Or not.

Benny let her go, sliding off the stool and taking a step away. Lilah craned her neck to confirm what she already knew.

“Oh, thank God,” she murmured, reaching down and picking up the staff, “I got what you asked for.”

Brasa’s attention was on the culebra who was backing away. He stared them down for a few more seconds before his eyes turned to her. Lilah held up the staff, shaking it from side to side a little.

He glanced at the staff, glanced at her, then turned, “Come with me.”

Lilah stared at his back for a second before she sighed and followed him through to his public office. There was no conversation as they traversed the stone pathway towards his desk. When he reached it, Brasa leaned his hips back on the desktop, gloved hands folded in front of him.

Wordlessly, Lilah handed him the staff. He took it, held it in both hands for barely a moment before setting it aside. For as much effort as he was going through to get ahold of it, he certainly didn’t look pleased to actually have it in his possession.

Unable to take more silence, Lilah said the only thing she could think of, “For the record, I wasn’t flirting with him, either.”

First shot fired. Lilah shifted on her feet in preparation for return fire.

Eyes dropping down and to the side, Brasa pushed his hands into his pockets and released a heavy sigh, “I regret how I reacted last time we spoke.”

Well, that was unexpected. Lilah had expected him to double down on it, not express regret. Still, that wasn’t an apology. It did, however, take the edge of her anger.

Lips pursed, she replied, “I’m sure you do.”

Another sigh. It looked like she was going to have to take lead on this, if she wanted a resolution. Lilah very deliberately did not think about why she might want resolution as opposed to giving him the eternal cold shoulder.

“Hey,” she began, holding up her hands, “You can’t get angry any time I’m nice to anyone around me. I have work to do, and that involves having good relationships. Jealousy is not a good look.”

He nodded, “I am unused to these feelings and I am struggling to control them.”

A good explanation, but not an excuse for the behavior.

“That’s okay,” Lilah responded, taking a step forward, “But you need to talk with me about them and not...make assumptions.”

Another nod, “I’m sorry.” There was her apology. “I will try.”

She saw it for what it was, a gesture of good faith. Mollified by his words, Lilah’s shoulders dropped. She hadn’t realized how much tension she’d been holding in her body for the last few days. And now, she didn’t quite know what to do with all the built up anger. Suddenly, she was very tired.

“Good,” she said, “Let’s call it rule number one: if something is bothering us, we’ll talk about it.”

At this, he stood up straighter, his eyes finally finding hers, “I can do that.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to continue blocking me?” He asked in a small voice.

Brows together, Lilah responded lamely, “Blocking?”

He shrugged, “I haven’t been able to feel you while you were acquiring the staff. I worried.”

_Ah._ Lilah wondered if he’d picked that up.  _Of course_ he had.

“I’m sorry,” She said reflexively, “I needed a little space.”

He licked his lips, eyes regretful.  Lilah felt a stab of remorse in her chest.  She hadn’t meant to make him worry, she just needed to take a little time for herself to work out her feelings. And, she couldn’t do that if she could feel him with her in the interim. Still, she could also make a gesture of good faith.

“Alright,” she breathed, moving closer to him, “Rule number two, if we talk about it, we won’t block each other out of spite.”

Looking placate d , Brasa reached out and took her hands, “I’m glad you are safe.”

“Me, too,” Lilah laughed, “There was no danger. We got in and out with no problems.”

He shook his head, “That isn’t the danger I’m worried about. The culebra out there? Benny? He’s been stirring the others up. He knows who you are to me, and I don’t put it past him to strike out at you to get to me.”

Setting aside the question of how Benny figured out that Lilah was bonded to Brasa, she took a minute to think, “Should I pull a weapon next time?”

He smirked, “You’re a terrible shot.”

“I didn’t say it would be a gun.”

“Oh?”

“I still have my knife. I did alright with the last guy. Got him twice before he threw me through the window.”

Brasa winced, “The point is that he was able to throw you through a window before I got there.”

“That is a good point,” Lilah said seriously, though she could feel a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

He rolled his eyes, “Be serious.”

“I am,” she shot back, “I can handle myself in a fight. Usually.”

That was only half a lie. Lilah could handle herself with humans, most of the time. She’d been struggling to hold her own in a fight with a culebra ever since she’d first come up against them. But, he didn’t need to know that.

Deciding that she needed to change the subject, Lilah nodded to the staff, “What do you need it for, anyway?”

He drew he a little closer, expression serious, “I intend to close the portal between this world and Xibalba, so that no others like me come through it.”

She blinked, “Like you?”

Brasa hummed in confirmation, standing and leading her to the side  where the secret door was open and waiting. 

“Culebras were slaves there, treated as slaves, culled when needed,” he explained, stepping into the dark hallway. “Xibalbans are, as a whole, selfish creatures—destructive, vain, apathetic. Despite my birth status, I experienced what it was like to be subservient to them for many centuries. I don’t want this world to see that kind of pain.”

Lilah listened quietly, walking with him into his bedroom and through to his library where she sat on the couch at his side.

“I’ve done a lot of research,” he continued, “With the relics you acquire for me, I can close the veil permanently.”

She waited a few seconds to make sure he wasn’t going to explain further, then said, “I’m completely on board with this plan.”

He smiled, “I thought you might be.”

“How many more relics to I need to get?”

Brasa laid his arm over the back of the couch, “Three. A cup, a book, and a knife.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“It could be,” he replied, reaching out to trace along her jaw, “I still worry for you. I think I always will.”

She could feel the heat of his body beneath the leather, and  she found that she wanted to feel his hands—for real, this time, instead of vague remnants from a dream.  In the moments of quiet, her skin remembered what it was like to be caressed by those hands, to feel his fingers curl around her.

“Why do you wear the gloves?”

His hand dropped, his head pulling back.  Lilah regretted her words immediately, but he stopped her when she made to apologize.

“You know I’ve killed people,” he said plainly, “My queen, she made me do things that I couldn’t say no to. At first, I thought I was doing the right thing. I believed in it. In the end, I think I did it because I enjoyed it.” He looked down at his hands, “I guess I felt like if I didn’t touch them, if I didn’t feel it as I killed them, I could put distance between what I am and what I was made to do.”

Lilah was quiet a long time.  He wouldn’t look at her. She could see the shame on his face, in the slump of his shoulders. She made a decision.

W ith deliberate slowness, she picked up his hand, saying, “I think we need to make new memories with these hands, then.”

Checking to make sure he was okay with it, Lilah very carefully pulled the glove off. His hand was a nice, normal hand. No scars, neatly trimmed nails, a wide palm with surprisingly fine boned fingers. Watching his face, she lifted it and placed it on her cheek, the warmth seeping in immediately. Lilah held it there, letting him feel.

He swallowed audibly, thumb swiping over her cheekbone.  The touch was soft, delicate, testing. With just as deliberate a pace, Lilah pulled the glove off the other hand, placing it on the opposite cheek. He was breathing hard, eyes unfocused, plush lips parted. She could see the way his pupils were dilating, taking over the iris and bleeding a little into the white. 

Lilah didn’t know why  she  did it, but instinct had her moving closer, swinging a leg over his hips and pushing him into the back of the couch.  He kept his grip on her cheeks, letting her settle into his lap. Lilah dropped her forehead onto his, eyes half lidded. His body was fire hot beneath her, and she could tell that he was itching to move,  yet he remained docile.

Letting the moment expand between them, Lilah touched her nose to his, bumping it affectionately. He smiled, his hands pushing into her hair.

“See?” she prompted gently, “New memories.”

He nodded even as he lifted up to kiss her, his hands holding her steady as he slipped his tongue inside for a taste. Lilah ran her hands down his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as he kissed her nearly senseless.  The scent of him, the way his arms wrapped around her middle and held her tight, the taste, it all mixed together in a way that made her lightheaded.

Brasa jerked back, pulling away even further when Lilah made to follow him. She panted, blinking as she took in the black of his eyes, the fangs that had descended.  He hadn’t nicked her, she couldn’t taste blood, but she did notice a strange tingling on her lips, over her tongue.

“What?”

He ran his tongue over his lips, “I can’t kiss you like this.”

Her brows furrowed, “Because of your teeth?”

Mouth twitching, he shook his head, “Because of the venom.”

She drew in a breath, “I have no idea what to do with that information.”

He touched her mouth ever so gently, “Kissing you is arousing, Lilah.”

“Uh huh,” she said, nipping at the pad of his forefinger, “That’s kind of the point.”

Hand dropping, Brasa searched for words, “The muscle that controls the venom is reflexive, I can’t control it. Kissing you… like this...you’re very likely to ingest the venom.”

“And,” Lilah prompted, following his line of thought, “You think I’ll suffer from some of the effects.”

“Yes.”

They were going to have to get past this, sooner or later. Lilah voted for sooner.

Settling further into his embrace, Lilah cupped his jaw, leaning into his space, “Are you likely to be aroused any time we kiss for more than a moment?”

Eyes bright, he nodded, “Very likely, I think.”

“Then,” she reasoned in an even tone, “You’re going to settle for quick little kisses for the rest of our relationship?”

To give him an example to go by, Lilah dropped down and pressed a soft, but fleeting kiss to his mouth.  He tried to lean up to get at her again, but she pushed him down, surprised by how willingly he submitted to the motion.

“I mean,” she continued, giving him another quick kiss, “If that’s what you want,” she kissed him harder, but just as quick, “I can try to accommodate you.”

H e looked so torn, sitting underneath her weight, hands rubbing at her hips, pulling her into the hard planes of his body. Lilah might have had mercy on him if she thought he would get over his hesitation on his own.  Deliberately, she gathered all the bravado she had in her body, using it to do what might normally make her feel too vulnerable.

“You know what that means, though, right?” she breathed, her mouth barely brushing against his, “No deep kisses, no sliding my tongue against yours,” she carded her hands back into his hair, pulling gently and reveling in the little contented moan he made. Then, she went in for the kill, “And definitely no biting.”

Brasa flinched, and she knew she had him.  His grip on her hips tightened to near pain, his body rigid.  Biting was so deeply ingrained in his kind, a need so deeply held, that to deny it was unthinkable. Lilah knew this, and she was definitely above using it.

She released her hold on his hair, palms on either cheek, “Do you want that?”

“No,” he rasped, a low growl building in his chest.

Smiling, she asked, “Then, what are we going to do about it?”

He looked at a loss, “I don’t know.”

Lilah thought for a moment, half a plan already formed, “You said I could ingest the venom and feel its effects. Is that better than a bite?”

Hesitation, then a curt nod.

“Okay then,” she said lightly, “How about we start with that? We can work up to a bite when you feel more comfortable.”

Lilah had no idea when she’d become so relaxed about him kissing her, biting her, and all the things that went along with that act. What she did know was she wasn’t going to sit stagnant, waffling about the rightness of it. Lilah _wanted_ more kisses, and that was enough for her.

When she moved to kiss him, he pulled back a little, shifting to the side. Lilah, off balance, fell to the cushions. He crawled over her, hips settling between her thighs, though he held most of his weight on his arms. She laughed softly, letting her body relax into the couch.

“Just a little,” he urged, expression eager, “To start. To see how you do with it.”

Willing to let him experiment, Lilah nodded, chin tilting up with the gentle pressure his his hand.

“Open,” he whispered, his mouth hovering over hers.

Lilah’s lips parted, her eyes falling closed. She felt his jaw flex, felt little drops fall onto her tongue. They were hot, like the rest of him, rolling over her taste buds to burn down the back of her throat. She swallowed reflexively, taking whatever he was willing to give her in that moment.

When he lifted a little, Lilah opened her eyes to see him searching her face. She didn’t quite get why he was so nervous—he’d told her that the venom wasn’t harmful, that the effects were pleasing.  Still, she was charmed by the concern.

And then the tingles started. Over the length of her tongue, her lips, the inside of her cheeks, down her neck and into the pit of her belly. Little tingles everywhere, as if she were covered in little tickling bubbles. Lilah huffed out a breath, grinning.

“Good?”

She nodded, “Very good.”

Though clearly pleased, his face was serious, his gaze looking her over and clocking every little movement.

She said his name to capture his full attention, “This is nice.”

His mouth kicked up on one side, “Wait until it peaks.”

“Peaks?”

Brasa hummed a little, pushing hair away from her face, his touch light.  A moment later and she knew what he meant. The pleasant tickle turned into a searing burn  of pleasure , her muscles going lax and nerves firing sporadically. She let out a startled yelp, her hands coming up to dig into his broad shoulders. 

“Hush, querida,” he murmured, hands running along her sides.

As quick as it rose, so did the feeling subside. Lilah was left sucking in air as she gained control of her limbs again. She wiped sweat from her forehead, her hand trembling.

Staring up into his carefully guarded eyes, Lilah gave him a soft smile, “That’s a good start, I think.”


	7. Chapter 7

Fucking customs.

She hated going through customs.

Lilah’s hands were cuffed behind her as she sat on a heavy metal chair. The air conditioner was running full blast and she was shivering. Lilah was suddenly wishing she hadn’t stuffed her sweatshirt in her carry on bag. In only a camisole and shorts, she felt the effects of frostbite weren’t far away.

There had been a traffic jam on the highway and the cup had been reported stolen before she could get on the plane. Lilah could plan for a lot of contingencies, but an overturned semi hauling innumerable packages of ramen noodles would be filed under ‘freak accident’. It would take many, many years before Lilah would be able to smell the beef flavoring without thinking of being hauled gracelessly into this little room.

Seth had been third in line behind her, Richie having already cleared security, when they popped her for the theft. And, here she sat, waiting for one or both of them to break her out. They were smart guys, but this was an airport. Lilah was not going to count on rescue being quick. She settled further into the unforgiving metal of the chair, and waited.

The airport staff were likely running her passport, a fake, and her prints, which she could not fake. Lilah put it at about ten minutes before they figured out she was wanted in three states, an hour or two before she was extradited to one of those states. By noon, she was going to be behind bars. If she had it her way, they’d jack the car she was being transported in. Quick, easy, low chance that there would be security they couldn’t handle.

They’d lose the cup, though, which was not acceptable. It would sit in evidence somewhere until she was tried for the case—a trial that wouldn’t happen. Lilah did not like the prospect of getting the thing out of an evidence lock up. No, the best thing would be for her to get out of the cuffs, sneak out of the room, grab the cup on the way out.

The idiots who’d cuffed her left her purse on the table. In it was a burner cell phone. The plan was as follows: Get out of cuffs, use cell phone to call Seth and relay plan, sneak out, get cup, haul ass through the South exit, meet up with Seth, haul ass out of the country by car as opposed the plane.

The problem wasn’t the plan. The problem was that she was cuffed. Lilah was a very good thief, but she couldn’t steal with her hands behind her back. Not even she was stupid enough to take that boast on.

A low whir told her that the a/c had kicked on again and Lilah glared up at the vent. This was a far cry from where she’d been not a few days before, sitting on a soft, overstuffed couch and discussing strategy for how to expedite shipments to the club. He was feeding more and more of his people, and supplies were remaining stagnant. Lilah would very much would like to be curled up on that couch with Brasa, soaking up the heat from his body. Instead she was...pissed off and cold.

The conversation was one of the few that hadn’t ended in either ambiguity or frustration. Lilah had actually enjoyed sitting with him, arguing points back and forth, problem solving. He’d challenged her ideas, prompting alternatives that she found herself agreeing with. And then, when the conversation died down, he’d simply taken her hand and pulled her into his body.

Lilah had rested against him for awhile, soaking in the his warmth and letting him run his palm over the back of her hand and up her arm. Over and over, a deeply soothing motion. And then, with little preamble, he pulled her thumb between his lips nipping it with a lowered fang. She’d felt a pinch of pain, and then the venom slid into her veins, sending little zings of pleasure up her arm to settle in her chest.

Brasa had repeated the process with each of her fingers, watching her carefully. He’d agreed to continue exposing her a little at a time, and Lilah felt her cheeks warm as she thought about how very sweetly he’d kissed her before she’d left. Though she’d reached for him on the couch, he’d been adamant that she lay back and enjoy the feeling running over her nerves. Afterwards, he’d ensured she could stand steadily before allowing her to make her way to the door.

Smiling a little, Lilah tapped her sneakered feet against the tile, waiting for the first of what she assumed was two agents that would be responsible for questioning her. This was the hard part, the waiting. She was already bored, not even her ire was enough to keep her distracted.

Eyes closed, Lilah tried to keep herself calm and relaxed. The agents would be watching for anxiety, for signs of fear. When they got her details, they’d be expecting a professional who knew they were caught. They might want to negotiate for her partners. That meant she had leverage. She could buy time for Seth to get into position.

God, she was cold. Goosebumps were peppered all along her arms. As soon as she delivered that cup, she was going to wrap herself up in Brasa until he melted her down to her bones.

“I will be happy to accommodate.”

Lilah flinched, eyes flying open. Brasa was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room, smirking at her from behind gold rimmed glasses.

“What are you doing here?” She hissed.

He pushed from the wall, circling around the table between them. After pushing her purse to the side, he sat back on the table, gloved hands folded in front of him, “I felt you.”

She gaped, “You felt me?”

Brasa nodded, “I felt you wanting me. Here I am.”

Her eyes narrowed, “You can do that?”

“Apparently.”

Well...that was an entirely new thing that she now had to figure out how to deal with. While handcuffed. In what she could only assume was federal custody. Shit.

“We really, really have to iron out the details of the bond,” she muttered, shaking her head.

“Yes, we do,” an agent said as he stormed into the room, a file in one hand. “By my count, you’ll be up to a couple million by the time we’re done with you.”

Lilah watched him cross over and sit in the chair opposite her. She had to resist lifting her gaze to gauge Brasa’s expression. The agent looked completely unaware that they weren’t alone. She didn’t want to tip him off that anything might be awry.

“No response?” The agent asked, brows lifted.

He was blond, average build, mid-fifties. The cut of his suit was off the rack, but he was wearing very nice cuff links. His haircut suggested ex-military. He wasn’t wearing a tie. Consultant. She put it at about twenty minutes since she’d been cuffed. He was already on site. If he had a partner, they would be there with him, he was working alone. The file was bullshit, a prop. Whatever he knew, he’d just read off the net. She could work with that.

“I’m Agent Rollins,” he offered with a smile.

Lilah stared at him, waiting.

“You’re a very popular woman.”

“And?”

Brasa shifted to the side, moving to stand behind her, his hand resting on the back of her chair. She ignored him, focusing on the agent. Rollins reached over and dumped her purse, finding her cell.

“If I hit redial, who will this call?”

A burner phone. Seth might answer it. That would work in her favor.

“Do it and find out.”

His smile was coy, as if he’d been let in on a joke she hadn’t told, “I think I’ll wait for the authorities to arrive.”

There. She could manage him with that. There were others that had more power. He was looking to make a deal, hoping she’d be scared enough to talk. He wanted something to boost his profile.

“Then, I don’t need to say anything else to you,” she quipped, slouching in the chair, “You’re not important enough to waste the effort on.”

His jaw ticked, “You know, I can get those cuffs off you.”

“I’m good with them where they are,” she said, pacing the answer to come off flippant as opposed to brash.

“Are you?” came a voice at her ear.

The heat of him was distracting, but Lilah managed to ignore him, “Why don’t you go tell your boss to come in here. We can talk turkey.”

“What does a turkey have to do with it?” Brasa said, in time with Rollins’, “I don’t have a boss.”

“You’re going to have to stop talking for a minute,” Lilah bit out, her chin tilting in Brasa’s direction as he leaned into her space.

Rollins sputtered, “You don’t want me to stop talking. I stop talking, you go to prison.”

Lilah held her tongue, her attention diverting to the way Brasa was dropping a kiss on her exposed shoulder.

Rollins took her distraction for fear, he leaned forward onto his elbows, “I can ensure you get minimum security. A woman of your skills can get out of that, no problem.”

That was true. She could swing that. But, she wasn’t going to get that far. Lilah was going to walk out of this office with the cup. And that was that. She’d be doing that a lot faster if Brasa wasn’t nosing along her temple, mouth skimming her skin.

She took a breath, trying to steady herself as Brasa ran his gloved fingers along her collarbone, “You need to stop.”

Brasa chuckled, “Why? You’re enjoying it.”

“Ms. McNamara,” Rollins entreated, “I’m trying to help you.”

Lilah shivered as she felt leather trace over the back of her neck, the weight of his hand resting there.

“You’re not the one cuffed to a chair,” she bit out.

Rollins, mistaking her meaning, nodded and reached into his pocket. Lilah could not stop the way her body tensed, too many knives pulled on her in just so casual a manner. Behind her Brasa let out a soft growl, but he moved, his eyes watching Rollins’ every step.

Leaning down, Rollins looked her in the eye, “As an act of good faith, I’ll un-cuff you. Fair warning, there’s an officer watching through the glass over there. You make any wrong move, and we’ll hog tie you until your transfer is cleared. Understood?”

Lilah smiled, “Understood.”

Rollins leveled a long look at her before he leaned down and slipped the key into the lock. Lilah felt the cuffs give way and drop into his hand.

“Now,” he said as he stood, pushing the cuffs into his pocket, “Do you have something to say?”

Lilah dropped her eyes and pretended to think, her jaw working, “Look up Mary Westmacott. Hard to find, but that should give you something to go off of.”

Rollins sneered a little bit, disappointed that she wasn’t giving up more, but she saw him process the name. He’d run it through all the normal archives—FBI, CIA, Interpol—but, he’d come up with nothing. It would buy her maybe twenty minutes to get out of the room, get the cup, and get out the door. She could do that.

When Rollins was gone, Lilah breathed deeply and looked over the contents of her purse. Rollins had taken her cell, but she had…gum, a pen, her wallet (sans ID), and mace. The idiot had taken her cell and identification, but left mace. She’d give him that it was disguised as a tube of lipstick, but it wasn’t even that good a disguise. Lilah liked to carry it, just in case, but she never bought the expensive stuff—had to ditch it before security, anyways.

She kept her body relaxed, but couldn’t help but to watch Brasa as he sauntered around her to return to his position atop the table. He was smiling.

“Oh sure,” she murmured, “Come on in, shove my purse aside, sit there, and smile at me. I still have to get out of this room.”

Stupid pleased smile. Stupid pretty face. Lilah shifted uncomfortably, trying to think of a strategy that wouldn’t get her shot in the back as she ran from the building.

“How can I help?” he asked, palms turned upwards.

Lilah sighed, “Hand me that mace, we’ll call it even. It looks like a lipstick.”

He leaned back a little, grabbed the little tube and held it up for her inspection. When she nodded, he tossed it to her. Lilah caught it and pushed it into her back pocket for safekeeping. She’d picked it up at a gas station just outside the city when they’d landed, a quick sleight of hand while Seth paid the cashier.

“Thank you,” she said, with feeling.

With a soft sound of entreaty, Brasa dropped to his knees, a move as startlingly fast as it was graceful. Lilah flinched, scooting the chair back a bit.

“What are you doing?”

With deliberate slowness, Brasa pulled the glasses off and tucked them into the inner pocket of his jacket. Then, he settled his weight back on his heels, big brown eyes looking up at her. Lilah’s hands curled around the legs of the chair, the cool metal grounding her against the heavy beat of her heart.

His gaze scanned the length of her body, along her shoulders, her breasts, hips, thighs, and down to her ankles. She felt leather encircle her calves, heat sizzling over her skin.

“You’re always wearing these thick sweaters,” he said in a soft, easy tone, “Is this what you wear to work?”

She huffed, shaking her head, “Its in the carry-on.”

He hummed a little bit, eyes roaming, “I like this change. You should do it more often. Especially the shorts.”

At this Lilah rolled her eyes, flexing her leg a little to tap her foot against his knee, “Says the man who wears nothing but black.”

Conceding the point wordlessly, Brasa leaned forward and up a little so that his chest was pressed against her knees.

“What would you have me wear?”

Though the question seemed innocent enough, Lilah caught a little bit of strain in his eyes. He was asking because he really wanted to know what she wanted, as if he’d wear whatever she suggested.

After a few seconds of hesitation, she simply said, “Wear whatever you whatever you want. Whatever _you_ like.”

He laughed, a cutting thing that made her push back a little in her seat.  Still laughing, he dropped his head into her lap, drawing in a breath that grazed her inner thighs. Lilah swallowed and resisted the urge to put her hands in his hair, a reaction she didn’t know quite what to do with.

W hen he’d calmed, Brasa’s head rolled to the side and he looked up at her from beneath his lashes, “You are impossible.”

She blinked, “You keep saying that.”

“I mean it,” he shot back, his hands sliding up her legs to rest on the tops of her thighs. Rising so that he knelt on his knees before her, Brasa’s expression was soft, “You ask for my opinion. You listen to me, you talk to me without condescension.” He took a breath, “You ask me for nothing. You won’t let me, but what I _want_ is to serve you.”

Her jaw was hanging open. Lilah knew that. She absolutely could not help it.  No one had ever said anything qu i te so to the point to her before. Not ever.  She searched his face for insincerity, finding none.  He was being completely earnest.

T he door swung open and an angry Rollins strode in, red faced. There was sweat on his temple and a swagger in his step. He’d moved pretty fast, faster than she anticipated. Hardly five minutes had passed. He must have started with Google, rather than the government databases.  Damn it.

“And then there were none,” he pronounced, hands on his hips.

Smirking, Lilah gave him a reluctant nod, “You got it.”

At her feet, Brasa growled. Lilah kept her eyes on Rollins, but relaxed her hips, letting his weight fall forward between her knees. Rollins clocked the movement his sneer deepening to disgust.

“Don’t think that’s going to work with me,” he warned, as he stepped closer. 

Feeling the man between her legs tense to stand, Lilah squeezed her thighs a little to keep Brasa right where he was.

“Just wanted to see if you were an idiot, or not,” she quipped.

Rollins pointed at her, “Don’t play games with me. I’ll put you in a cell so fast—,”

“Of course you will,” she cut him off. “What you won’t do is cuff me again.”

She watched him get more angry, allowing herself to smile sweetly as he dug in his pocket. When he pulled out the cuffs  and took another step forward, Lilah shot up out of the seat, her hand subtly falling to rest for a fraction of a second on Brasa’s shoulder. He remained kneeling, but his hands ran up and down the length of her leg s before gripping her hips. 

R ollins pushed into her space a little, grabbing her hand. She struggled, arm waving out to pull his attention while she pushed three fingers into his pocket and slipped the keys out.  A hand reached up and pulled them from her fingertips, deftly putting them in her own pocket while she continued to fight with Rollins. Eventually, she left him cuff her hands in front of her, w hile she pretended to pout.

S tepping away, Rollins continued to glare at her, “You just sit there and wait. We’ll see who does what.”

She shrugged.

“You know, you keep talking to yourself. Make it easy for me and say something incriminating.” He reached down and jerked the mace out of her pocket, “I don’t know what kind of magnetic pull line you have on this, but don’t think we’re not watching you.”

When the door closed again, Lilah slumped a little. That was really, really easy.  Aside from him confiscating her only weapon, that went pretty much how she wanted it to. Rollins would leave her alone now.  Secure in the knowledge that she was bound and locked in a room, he  would be watching the windows for the authorities. She forgot about whoever was watching through the glass, but that could be dealt with, eventually.

Looking down at Brasa, she lifted a brow, “Tell me, have they always been like this?”

He smiled, rising to stand next to her, “Some things never change.”

“Good to know.” 

Lilah was stuck with the same problem she had a few minutes before—she needed to get out of the room, get the cup, and get out.  Her brain worked around it, her mouth screwing up in concentration.

“What can I do?” Brasa asked, and Lilah smiled. She had it.

F ixing him with a conspiratorial glance, she said, “How do you feel about making the guy on the other side of the glass pee his pants?”

Face opening up into a bright smile, Brasa nodded. Lilah turned her back to the glass and pitched her voice very low, “You can move stuff in the room. They can’t see you. Ergo, they thinks its me moving it. Let’s keep them thinking that.”

Catching on, Brasa stepped away from her, hand hovering above the table, waiting for her cue.  Lilah gave him a subtle nod and waved her hand s . With a harsh shove, he swept everything off the table, including her purse.  Lilah laughed. 

_I like this game._

She did it again and he upended the table, throwing it to the wall with the barest of touches.  The sound was loud enough that she knew she’d draw a bit of attention, so she waited, listening.  Brasa eyed the door, moving closer to her. When it remained closed, Lilah pointed at the chair, waggling her eyes at the two way glass. Another arc of her arms and the chair flew into mirror, cracking it. 

Straightening her shoulders, Lilah strode over to it and carefully pressed her finger into the bullseye where the chair had hit the hardest. She added a little more pressure, smiling when an audible crack sounded.

“Can you see me?” She asked, peering hard at her own reflection, “Want to see what else I can do? I’m gonna break this glass right in your face.” Lilah strode away, adding, “You might want to take a step back.”

A s she crossed the room, Brasa moved into place, a low chuckle rumbling, “ You are enjoying this.”

She beamed at him, “What’s life if you can’t show off once in a while?”

Lilah jerked her hands forward and he slammed his fist on the cracked mirror, shattering it. She laughed, stepping towards it as she dug the key out of her pocket. While she removed the cuffs, Lilah craned her neck to see the security guy (front line, hourly, untrained), cowering on the ground and attempting to use his chair as a shield.

“Hi,” she called out, leaning into the room. 

On the desk was the guard’s discarded jacket. She grabbed it and used it to cushion against the glass so that she could vault over the barrier and into the little observation room. It was significantly warmer on the other side of the glass and Lilah felt herself scoff internally at the interrogation tactics. She smiled at the guard.

“So, I just need you to be very quiet. Give me your cell phone.”

Shaking, he handed her the cell. She n odded her thanks and dialed.

“Who is this?” Seth answered brusquely. “We don’t do ransoms.”

“Good to know,” she shot back. “Listen, I’m out of the room. Gonna get the cup and be out of here in about ten minutes. South entrance. Be there.”

Hanging up, Lilah opened the timer app, “I’m going to set this for ten minutes. If you  make so much as a peep between now and then, I’ll use that power you saw in there to melt your brain through your nostrils. And, you don’t make enough for that shit, do you?”

The guard shuddered, “No.”

“Good,” she paused, “You see where they took the package I had?”

He nodded,  “ Its in Agent Rollins’ office.”

She smiled, “You’ve been very helpful.” Handing him the phone and standing, she added, “Don’t be stupid. Stay here. Stay quiet. Ten minutes.”

Catching sight of a taser on his belt, Lilah snagged it, clipping it to her belt loop. After another moment of thought, she reached over the desk and grabbed the jacket, shaking it out. This would do as a disguise, for the moment.  And then she was heading out, moving down the hall.

“He didn’t pee his pants,” came the comment from behind her.

“Yeah,” she murmured as she checked for others. “Damn shame.” Casting him a flirtatious look, Lilah said, “Next time.”

“I look forward to it,” he replied, his step a leisurely saunter in comparison to her intentional stealth.

Lilah found Rollins’ office fairly quickly. The door was closed. She could hear him on the phone.  Probably boasting about capturing a thief, caught red-handed. Her lip curled. Ear pressed to the door, she listened for her opening.

Warmth enveloped her from behind, gloved hands landing on either side of her head. Lilah’s eyes closed briefly and she turned to look up at him. He blocked out the light of the florescent bulbs above them.

“What’s the plan?” He asked cordially, as if they hadn’t just wrecked the interrogation room and scared a guard shitless. 

She shrugged, “When he’s done with his phone call, I’m going in there, using the taser on him, taking the cup, and walking out to the south entrance.” She pointed to her left, “Its just over there.”

He didn’t spare the exit a glance, merely continued to look at her with something like pride shining in his eyes.  The conversation in the next room continued in a low drone. Lilah leaned against the door and relaxed while she had the time. 

“Thank you for the help back there,” Lilah said, reaching up to touch the lapel of his jacket.

B rasa smiled, pleased, “ You had it under control.”

S he did, but Lilah definitely appreciated the assist. 

She shook her head, “For the record, I’ll always sign on for a little theatrics.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He looked like he was going to say something further, but his head turned to the side. Eyes down, he appeared to be listening.

Looking back at her, he simply said, “I need to go.”

She nodded, blinking, and then he was gone.  Leaning hard against the door, she struggled to keep the smile off her face, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Behind her, the conversation slowed to a stop and she took her cue.

With a little swivel, Lilah turned and breezed through the door. She targeted the cup on his desk,  ignoring his question of what the fuck she thought she was doing . Quick as she could, Lilah raised the taser and fired, catching him dead center on his chest.  He made a sound like a drowned cat, hitting the floor. With her free hand, Lilah shut the door and kept her finger on the trigger  for a few more seconds, just to be sure.

Grabbing the cup, Lilah shoved it into the roomy pocket of the jacket,  leaning over the desk to make sure Rollins wouldn’t get up too fast. Judging by the drool pooling beneath his mouth, she had a few minutes, at least.

The rest of the plan went smoothly, and Lilah was throwing herself into the back of the car, Richie cackling as he dropped into the seat, Seth cursing as he pealed out of the lot. They raced through the security gates, helpfully disabled by Richie, and out towards the highway.

Lilah held up the cup in victory, smiling as she reveled in the satisfaction of a job well done.  And then she frowned, sitting up so quick her eyesight blurred. 

“How are you out here? In the sun?” She nearly screamed, her hand gripping the shoulder of Richie’s suit jacket tightly.

R ichie shifted around to look at her through the seat, eager to explain, “Okay, so weird perk of completing a bond, right? I don’t become extra crispy in sunlight.”

She stared at him, trying to wrap her mind around it. Richie took her expression as categorical awe.

“I know, right?” He exclaimed, pushing his glasses up his nose, “Its the number one reason culebras try to initiate bonding—I mean, outside of the other stuff.”

Her brows drew together, “Other stuff?”

“Increased strength, faster healing, telepathic connection, and—oh, the feeding is,” he touched his fingers to his mouth in a chef’s kiss.

Lilah continued to stare, connecting dots, her throat dry, “What about, um, Kate? What does she get?”

His smile widened, “That’s the best part. Immortality without having to convert her.”

Immortality…

Lilah  found herself turning inwards even as she nodded along to Richie talking about comparative situations in fandom—oddly landing on Vulcan mating practices, which she  _was not_ going to get into with him on anything but a superficial level. 

Immortality…

How the fuck was she going to deal with that?


	8. Chapter 8

Lilah fiddled with the cup as she leaned against her car. It was after dark and the night was cool enough that she was wearing a long sleeved shirt beneath her hoodie. Her knife weighed against her forearm, though she’d forgone the gun. She didn’t anticipate a fight, here.

The elevator stood silently nearby, a stoic guard against the conversation she was itching to have—not a conversation, an argument. Lilah had been very clear with herself. This was not going to be a screaming match. She could handle this like a normal, mature, fully functioning adult. Sort of.

Lilah had spent the rest of the trip home and the haul all the way out here debating him in her head. Her anger had only grown over time, snowballing into a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t like how sick it made her that there was yet another secret she was only finding out after the fact. It made her feel like she couldn’t make good decisions, couldn’t keep her own self interest in focus.

With a deep breath, she pushed from the car and stepped to the elevator, jabbing the call button before shoving the cup into the little paper gift bag she’d brought along to hide it in. Couldn’t be walking around willy nilly with valuable artifacts.

The door opened and she stepped inside, poking absently at the floor she needed. The carriage dropped and Lilah leaned against the back of it, trying to control her feelings. It was not a simple task. Lilah liked to think of herself as easy going, but she found lies by omission to be particularly distasteful. And, this was one hell of a lie by omission.

Fucking immortal. And, he hadn’t even bothered to give her a heads up. The fucking gall of it. She shook her head as the doors opened, striding out into the club with a singular purpose. Ignoring the looks she was no doubt receiving for being so under dressed, Lilah moved through the room to the back door, keyed the code she’d been given, and stepped through it.

As she closed the door behind her, the edges of her vision blurred a little, her body swaying. With a groan, she rested a hand on the wall and waited for the feeling to pass. It happened from time to time, and Lilah had always dismissed it as a product of the stress she had been under lately. Now, she wondered if this was a product of her body adjusting to the immortality that _she hadn’t been told about._ After a moment, Lilah was able to regain her composure and she made her way to the large double doors of Brasa’s public office. She knocked, waited, knocked again, tried the handle, and found it locked.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Lilah crossed her arms, the bag swinging with the movement. It took about two seconds before she was moving impatiently further down the hall, glancing through open doors to see if she could find someone to ask about Brasa’s whereabouts. He knew she was delivering the cup tonight, should have been expecting her. It was yet another frustrating thing to add to the pile of frustrating things.

Turning a corner, Lilah caught the sound of voices from down the hall. Finally. They came from the open doors of a massive room. Lilah hesitated at the doorway, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a grimace. Cast in a warm red light, it appeared to be some kind of...church. The room’s open floor plan was cut into four parts by long pews, the circumference lined by columns. Lilah edged inside and moved around the perimeter so that she could watch from the sidelines.

The voices hushed, attention turning towards the front of the room. Lilah, grateful that she was being mostly ignored, crept forward, moving from column to column. At the front (or was it the back?) of the room stood an altar, the staff she’d procured standing upright behind it.

There was a palpable feeling in the air that made the hair on her arms stand up despite two layers of clothing. The crowd was undulating, pushing forward towards the altar, their eyes hungry. Lilah caught a flash of fang here or there, audible growls rolling towards her. Her spine straightened as she reflexively checked for danger. Fortunately for her, they were more focused on what was going near the altar to pay much attention to her.

He moved through shadow from the opposite side of the room, his familiar leather jacket swinging with his steps. Lilah pressed her body against the column, craning her neck so that she could see him better. Brasa faced the crowd, a storm in his expression. He spoke in a halting, sharp language that stung her ears, but she couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward to hear him.

Keeping low, she moved to another column, closing the distance between them. Column by column she moved, until she was nearly parallel to him, watching the side of his face as he continued to speak.

Lilah didn’t understand a word he was saying, it didn’t sound like any language she’d ever heard, but she could read his body. He was angry, and with his anger seemed to come a heat that billowed outwards, chasing away the chill. Sweat dripped from her temple down the side of her cheek. It dropped down her jaw to her chest, running between her breasts and over her stomach. Her palms slipped on the stone.

His speech rose to a crescendo, and he pointed to the crowd. Lilah actually flinched with the motion, her hands flexing where they rested on the stone. There was an audible gasp, and a voice that spoke quickly. She knew that tone—pleading. The woman was brought forward, struggling against the grip of two men. Lilah felt her chest tighten, her mind already three steps ahead and screaming at her to look away.

The woman was laid on the altar and he stood over her, talking lowly. Lilah recognized that look. _Don’t kill me,_ it said. _Please, I’ll do anything._ Too many times had Lilah see this look. And, like all the others, she felt pity for this woman.

He was unmoved, and there was a ferocity in his expression that chilled her, despite the oppressive heat of the room. One gloved hand slid down the woman’s chest to her belly, and then in a quick, jerking movement, it was inside of her. Reaching up through the rib cage. Lilah felt her stomach turn as she watched him dig further, heard the woman’s screams.

After a moment, he pulled free, holding a snake high in the air. A roar build among the crowd and she thought she saw some of their faces distort grotesquely. He held the snake high for a few beats, then tossed it into a fire burning behind him. The woman on the altar screamed, a high, unearthly thing to Lilah’s ears.

She felt bile rise up into her throat as he reached back inside the woman. A second later, he was holding her heart in front of him. The crowd roared so loudly her ears rang.

“Oh, don’t do it,” she breathed, biting her lip hard.

With his free hand, he held it up and squeezed. Blood poured from the heart into his mouth, his eyes flaming red with rage. She’d never seen those eyes before, and it frightened her. Lilah stepped away from the column, moving through the room and out into the hall, glad that everyone was too entranced by the scene he was making to notice her dry heaving on her way out.

She stumbled back to the doors of Brasa’s office, once more hesitating, her eyes flicking towards the exit. Lilah could drop the package, head back, no one would ever know what she saw. She’d have to come up with some sort of excuse for her frazzled state when she got back—or, she could stop at a diner and drink coffee until her body stopped shaking.

Warmth pressed all along her back, and Lilah knew that she’d hesitated far too long. Turning, she caught him rounding the corner, his step slowing as he approached. She watched him watching her, his expression guarded and just this side of angry.

Lilah took a step back, holding the bag protectively in front of her.

“You saw,” he announced, his voice low and raw.

She nodded.

“Will you allow me to explain?”

Lilah now had two things that she wanted him to explain, and she hoped that the list wouldn’t get any longer. She was already feeling reed thin and fragile. Too wrapped up in her thoughts to pay attention to how her fingers were fidgeting with the little ribbon handles of the gift bag in her hands. She gave him another nod.

Unlocking the doors, Brasa urged her inside, closing the door behind them. The sound of it echoed in the empty room. Everything was still—the air, the water on either side of the walkway, Lilah. She stood in place as Brasa circled around her and started walking towards his desk. Only his look over his shoulder at her forced her feet to move forward.

Swinging the bag at her side, Lilah walked a few steps behind, her sneakers tapping across the tile floor, until she reached one of the chairs. She almost sat. She almost sank down tiredly into that chair and let his voice calm her anger. Lilah remained standing.

Gingerly, she sat the parcel on his desk, then pushed her hands into the front pocket of her sweatshirt. Brasa eyed her, then the bag, before leaning down and picking it up. He looked inside briefly, and set it aside. The empty air thinned further, and Lilah clenched her jaw to keep from screaming all the things she’d been thinking over the last day. Heat that had nothing to do with the male standing before her rose to burn through her chest and belly. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“I won’t ask what you know of culebra death rituals,” he began, the cant of his shoulders tense as he spoke, “But, what you saw in there was necessary.” He waited a beat for her response, received none, and kept going, “ She killed an entire family, slaughtered them for their blood, and left them to be found by the authorities. She brought unnecessary attention to us, put the safety of the whole group at risk. I had to make an example of her.”

T he last sentence was punctuated by his hand  falling down on the desk, a move of finality.  Lilah flinched, blinking rapidly. It didn’t matter that he had a good reason for what she’d just seen. What mattered was he’d been lying to her—at minimum, he’d been withholding information that she  _ needed _ .

“ You’re not going to argue with me?”

Lilah shook her head, “No. I agree with your reasoning, if not your method.”

His eyes narrowed, “You were angry before you walked in, weren’t you.”  He sighed, standing and rounding the desk to stand before her, “What happened?”

_Don’t yell. Don’t. Yell._

Lilah yelled, “You fucking lied to me!”

Head tilting back, Brasa’s expression was confused, “I have not.”

“Lying by omission is a lie.”

She hadn’t yelled that last bit, but she  _ had _ said it through clenched teeth that she was absolutely baring at him.  Well...there went being a mature adult. 

Hand coming up to rub at the bridge of his nose, Brasa simply asked, “What have I omitted?”

Incredulous, Lilah held up both her hands, palms to the ceiling, “Oh, I don’t know, how about the fact that I’m immortal now? Is that a big enough omission for you?”

He stared at her for a few seconds, pulling his lips between his teeth as he thought. Lilah felt her frustration grow at the lack of reaction, the calm that he exuded when she was so goddamned fired up.

“ I had hoped to tell you about this gradually,” he said finally, taking a step back and sitting on the desk, his hands dangling between his thighs. 

S he shifted on her feet, sucking air through her teeth, “I think you’d better tell me now.”

He lifted a shoulder, “There is not much more to say. You will live for a long time.”

“How?”

His brows drew together, “How?”

Apparently, the echo had  seeped into him as well. She crossed her arms, fixing him with an angry frown.

With a shake of his head, Brasa stood and slipped his hands into his pockets, “I suppose ‘magic’ won’t be an acceptable answer.”

“You suppose correctly.”

The growl in her voice was foreign to her. Lilah couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so angry.  It made her body, already tired from the long trip, ache all over. She wanted to sleep for ten years, she wanted stand in the middle of a field and scream for an hour, she wanted to purchase another round of explosives and blow up something big. 

Brasa’s jaw worked, “ The blood. It always comes down to the blood. My blood is stronger than yours. It subsumes it, changes it, changes you.”

_ In the sewers... _ that was when it had happened.

“Does it,” she croaked, clearing her throat, “Is it instantaneous? Can it be reversed?”

H is expression stilled,  and that was all the answer she needed.  Lilah felt her chest constrict, her eyes water. She sniffed and dropped her gaze to the floor. Her anger dissipated into a strange kind of sorrow for something she never knew she’d have to grieve. 

“ I’m sorry.”

And just like that, her anger ignited all over again, giving her the energy to push back her tears and sneer at him, “You don’t get to apologize for this. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

His lip curled, “And what were my options? My bondmate falls through a skylight into the middle of a ring of very thirsty culebras, shoots me, runs away, and then detonates explosives to drop the building on top of us. In less than ten minutes you had proven to me that I couldn’t take a single chance for your safety.”

Her hand curled into little fists against her chest, “You could have let me go. You could have let me make my own decision.”

Pushing from the desk, he stepped into her space, looking down his nose at her, “You did make your decision. It would have ended your life in that basement if I hadn’t gotten you out. It was  _ your decision _ that made  _ my decision _ for me.”

She scoffed, “I made that decision out of fear.”

“And you think I didn’t?” he shot back, “Lilah, do you have any idea how fragile you were? How fragile you still are? You’ll live longer, yes, but you are still no match for my enemies.”

“You think I haven’t made enemies? I’m a thief, Brasa. I’ve stolen from some seriously heavy hitters, I’m wanted in several countries. I once accidentally performed a small coup in a town hall that got a bomb put in my rental—so glad I paid the extra insurance that time.”

He was already shaking his head, “Humans, Lilah. You’ve pissed off  _ humans _ .”

“Please,” she drawled, “Culabras a re way, way less creative than a human. Their primary drive is to be fed regularly  and to stay out of the sunlight.  A human? They’ll destroy everything you ever love and make you watch. ”

Eyes closing briefly, Brasa took a calming breath, “How can you be so flippant? I am their leader, I have been controlling their food supply.”

“And I am your weakness,” she spit at him, “Thank you for that reminder.”

He dropped his chin and looked at her with regret in his eyes, “ I just wanted you safe.”

“No,” she said, her voice resigned, “You wanted to be in control. You knew it would connect us, you knew it would give you the ability to know me in ways I would have never let you know me, not so quickly.”

Pulling back a little, Brasa gave no denial. He simply  watched her, looking lost.

“That was not fair,” Lilah said, eventually.

He nodded, eyes glancing off to the side,  then, “How long will you be gone?”

“What?”

Shrugging, he repeated the question, followed by, “That’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to run away. How long?”

Lilah physically took a step back as her mind mentally did the same, “I don’t know.”

He gave a humorless laugh, “Not even following your own rules, Lilah?”

_Policy number one…_

She sighed deeply, the hypocrisy not lost on her, “You once asked me for time. I’m asking for the same thing, in return.”

Brasa nodded, then moved around his desk and opened one of the drawers. He pulled an old book from its depths, moving to hand it to her. Lilah took it, thumbs rubbing over the cover.

To her unasked questions, he said, “Its written in Spanish, but I’m sure you’ll find an effective translator. That should answer most of your questions regarding the bond.”

Lilah didn’t thank him. Her brain was already five hours ahead, sitting on a jet to Canada. It would take nothing to book the flight and the cabin she’d been eyeing for months. With one last look at him, Lilah turned and walked out.


End file.
